


Trainwrecks

by LucyCrewe11 (Raphaela_Crowley)



Category: Aquamarine (2006), Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst and Tragedy, Character Death, Crossover Pairings, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Peter Is The One Who Forgets Narnia Not Susan, Peter Pevensie-centric, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 40,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28563423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raphaela_Crowley/pseuds/LucyCrewe11
Summary: The railway accident of 1949 leaves two very stubborn other-worldly persons all but alone in England's world. Can they work together to cope?
Relationships: Peter Pevensie/Aquamarine





	1. Friends of Narnia and friends with fins

**Author's Note:**

> Written in Fall 2009
> 
> Both the "Narnia" stuff and the "Aquamarine" stuff are based off of both the movies and the books, but in order for this to actually make sense, (for this fic) the events of "Aquamarine" took place in the 1940s around the same time as Narnia. 
> 
> This is also a slightly AU version of "The Last Battle".

_England: September 4th, 1949_

_7:15 PM_

The little English cottage-style country house was fairly bursting with laughter and merriment. Seven persons sat around a table that was much too small to hold all of them-though they didn't seem to care about this in the least and had happily packed in extra chairs and cushions; sitting rather squashed together like sardines.

The oldest of the seven was an elderly man, a learned professor who went by the name of Digory Kirke, with a wise-looking, surprisingly lean, gray-bearded face. He was puffing rather hard on his tobacco pipe; he knew it wasn't good for him, but it was a habit he had all but given up trying to break. His only consolation in the matter was that the holder he had had made to keep his tobacco in (a carved silver apple) reminded him of a very special place and time, and an adventure, from long ago. Being with these people reminded him of that, too, which was the reason he was so happy that day.

Sitting to his left, was the next oldest person in the room, an old lady with soft, dark, jolly blue eyes that always looked like they were dancing and never seemed to stop twinkling at a person when they fixed their gaze on them. Her name was Polly Plummer.

Beside Miss Plummer was a wispy, fair-haired, round cheeked girl of no more than seventeen (though she looked even younger than that) called Lucy Pevensie. Her elder sister, Susan, a very attractive young woman with long black hair of about twenty-one or so, sat across the table by their brother, Edmund (he was younger than Susan but at least a year older than Lucy).

To Edmund's right, was their cousin, Eustace Scrubb; he was rather short for a boy only a few months shy of his sixteenth birthday but this had become a little less noticeable since he'd gotten over his habit of constant slouching.

Across from Edmund and Eustace, sat the youngest person in the room, Jill Pole, a school girl in Eustace's year only about three months his junior; her hair was a chestnut-brown bob just long enough to be pulled back into a small braid that rested lightly on the nape of her neck.

Lucy, who up until this point had been the merriest of them all (with the possible exception of Polly), suddenly looked a little wistful, sad even, and turning to her brother said, "He really isn't coming, is he?"

Putting down his fork, Edmund forced a smile. "Peter's just busy, Lu, he'll come next time...I-I'm sure of it."

Susan wasn't so sure; she knew what it meant to be falling away from one's siblings and memories of Narnia, she knew each and every sign having been through it before herself. When she'd come back from her trip to America with her parents at sixteen years old, she thought she knew everything and, being a very sensible sort of person, had come to the not-actually-very-sensible-at-all conclusion that being a grown up meant dressing up for social events and cocktail parties and wearing a lot of lipstick. She had all but completely forgotten the country she, her two brothers, and her little sister had once ruled over-choosing to remember it mostly as a pretty game played for fun. The life she had fixed up for herself served its place and term, but when it had passed, she felt empty inside and quite lonely-a sort of beautiful monster cut off from the rest of her kin. Humbling herself, she had struggled her way back into her siblings' circle. It wasn't easy becoming a 'friend of Narnia' again-especially since she was still, even then, a sight _too_ keen on being 'grown-up', but she'd managed it in the end.

Sadly though, shortly after Susan had become her real old self again so that, even outside of the Narnian universe-in ordinary, run of the mill, old England-her brothers and sister knew her for 'Queen Susan the gentle', Peter had started to forget. It had started gradually at first but after a while, they-or at least Susan-knew what was happening to him. He didn't care about events and parties; his way of forgetting and 'growing up' was thrusting himself into his work with more and more intensity and vigor, giving almost no mind to anything or anyone else. He was a medical student now-studying to be a doctor-at one of the top universities in the country. To most ordinary observers, Peter appeared to be doing just fine; a decent, hard-working young man with a good head on his shoulders very likely to have an excellent career in front of him. But then, to those same people, Susan had seemed to be no more than a normal-albeit very beautiful-young woman who enjoyed-in all her own rights-a good party every now and again. It took someone who knew the Pevensies true past lives as kings and queens to see the real problems they hid so well from the rest of the world-and from themselves.

It was Susan who had first noticed him slipping away and had tried-in vain-to pull him back. It was Edmund who had to come to terms with the fact that his brother was changing into someone he didn't even know anymore, whether he liked it or not. And it was Lucy who had taken it the hardest of all; this was because she was the one who loved him the most. She had been the closet to him of the four, being almost more of a daughter to him than a sister, staying by his side through nearly everything, and feeling her heart break when the Peter she knew all but disappeared completely right before her eyes.

Trying not to cry as she watched her brother and sister fumbling for the right words to say (the sensation of being Lucy's main comforters was somewhat new to them, having been largely Peter's domain before), Lucy fixed her eyes on the golden chain-bracelet with the little heart-shaped pendant hanging from its last glittering link. Peter had given it to her when she was twelve and she still wore it every day. Whenever she looked at it, she remembered that her eldest brother _did_ love her and that he might return to his old self again-just as Susan had-some day. It gave her hope.

"Well now, then." Digory cleared his throat to rid the room of the uncomfortable silence it had suddenly found itself in and held up his glass of port (Susan and Polly had port, too, but Lucy, Edmund, Eustace, and Jill had been given only tea and milk) as if to give a toast.

Just before the professor could really begin his speech, Polly gasped and dropped her wineglass on the floor-it broke messily in several tiny shards.

"Aunt Polly, what is it?" Jill asked before following the eyes of everyone else in the room and seeing for herself what the cause of the hubbub was.

A man stood before them in full Narnian garb that was slightly stained and torn. He looked frightened and desperate, unable to stop blinking at them in amazement. His cheeks were bruised and anyone with half a brain upon seeing him knew-if nothing else-that he had surely passed a very disagreeable night somehow or other.

Susan felt everyone's eyes flickering from the Narnian man to her. She was the eldest queen present-it was up to her to address the man and rescue him if she could. Oh, how she wished Peter were there to deal with it! What was she supposed to do? She then wished that she was younger than Edmund, he looked so much calmer than she felt at the moment. Finally she gathered up enough courage to stand up and approach the Narnian man.

"Who are you?" she stood tall and tried to hold her head up in her old, once-familiar, queenly fashion. "Please speak to us, good sir."

The Narnian man went very pale in the face, flushing a withered-looking white colour underneath the darkness of his bluish-black bruises. Many times he appeared to be trying to speak to them but unable to make a sound, as if he was merely a phantom from-or else in-a dream. Then, as suddenly as he had appeared, he vanished into thin air-the look of broken dismay on his face the last bit of him they could catch sight of before he was gone.

Digory put his hand to his heart as if he was about to have a stroke. Edmund and Eustace couldn't stop glancing at each other with their mouths hanging agape. Jill whimpered. Polly plucked nervously at a small pearl-pendant necklace she was wearing on her white, wrinkled old neck. Lucy and Susan stared unwaveringly at the place where the man had been standing seeming unable to do much else.

* * *

_A bay off the coast of England: September 4th 1949._

_8:00 PM_

The yellowish sand on the shoreline gleamed pearly white under the light of shimmering half-moon glowing brightly above it. The waves were all white and green; breaking on the land in a sort of half-choppy kind of fashion. Peering out from behind a large rock, was a beautiful female face with a curtain of long pale hair flowing behind her. She wasn't human though, that much was certain. If anyone had been able to catch a full glimpse of her and knew anything about mythology, they would have whispered, 'Mermaid' to themselves at once. The mermaid flicked her long silvery-blue tail up and down rather impatiently as she strained her neck to be sure no one was watching her-except, of course, for the two people she had come out to meet.

Two brown-haired girls came out onto the shore; one of them carrying an electric torch. "Aqua?"

The girl with the torch was bare-footed and her hair was thrown back into a sloppy-looking ponytail; she reached the mermaid's hiding place first.

"Hailey?" whispered the mermaid, sticking her head a little further out.

"Aquamarine!" the other girl cried out happily. She was dressed in neater-looking clothes than her companion was, in spite of the fact that they were old fashioned and appeared to be hand-me-downs.

Aquamarine-the mermaid-noticed her and smiled. "Claire!"

"Oh, you made it!" said Hailey, lowering the torch a little, accidentally flashing it into Aquamarine's dark sea-blue eyes so that she blinked repeatedly until it was moved an inch or so over.

"We've missed you so much." Claire told her.

"I missed you both, too." Aquamarine assured them.

"How's the water?" Hailey asked; her mother was working to clean up the water in the local bays-she didn't know about mermaids-but she knew other creatures needed good water to live in and it was her job to ensure that they did. Now that she had a sea-faring friend herself, Hailey had actually started to take an interest in what her mother did.

"Simply delightful." Aquamarine giggled, reaching up and splashing her in the face. "Here, try some."

"You're coming with us to Bristol next week, right?" Claire asked her, just to be sure.

Aquamarine laughed-a very watery laugh, but that was only to be expected considering what she was-and tossed her head back as her cheeks flushed blue with excitement. "No, of course not, Claire, I've swum all this way to sit here and stare at nothing."

Hailey rolled her eyes and splashed the mermaid in Claire's defense. "Stop being such a little sea-princess, Aqua."

"Sorry, Claire." the mermaid amended.

"Were your six sisters very upset to see you go?" Hailey asked, more than a little curious about Aquamarine's family because, even though both she and Claire were best friends with the mermaid-just as they were with each other-they'd never met her family. They were much more discreet about appearing to humans than Aquamarine was; she was something of a family rebel.

"I can do what I like, they aren't the bosses of me." Hailey had forgotten that implying that Aquamarine was under _anyone's_ authority-especially that of her sisters-was something of a sore spot with their ocean-bred, sharp-tongued friend.

"So are you going to meet us at the train station when we go?" Claire interrupted pointedly so as to steer clear of the possible row that was starting up.

Distracted, Aquamarine lost her sarcasm, became cheerful again-then insecure, and nodded. "Yes, I'll meet you there...is it very hard to find?"

Noticing that she suddenly seemed a little unsure, even child-like, they went over the directions again and promised not to leave with out her, even if, by some misfortune, the train did.

"I-I can't leave here until the sun comes up." Aquamarine reminded them shakily. "My tail wont turn into legs when the moon is out."

"We remember, it's okay." the girls said at the same time, reaching out and each squeezing one of her hands.

"See you tomorrow, then." said the mermaid. "I'll try and find you and maybe we can talk some more about this... _Bristol_...place we're going to next week."

"See you." Claire waved goodbye.

"Bye, Aqua." Hailey picked up her torch and turned to leave.

* * *

_England: September 4th, 1949_

_8:30 PM_

"Now look here," said Edmund, finally breaking what had seemed to be an everlasting silence. "It's no use just sitting around staring at one another...we'll have to make some sort of plans," -turning to Digory- "Don't you think, Professor?"

"Yes, something must be going on in Narnia or else we wouldn't have seen that. Even if our visitor wasn't real-even if he was just a vision-we must do _something_." Digory agreed with him, puffing on his pipe again out of suppressed anxiety.

Susan didn't necessarily disagree with them, but she took a more practical approach in discussing the matter. "But what _is_ the use?"

"Susan!" Eustace snapped, thinking she was suddenly reverting to her old ways.

"Don't look at me like that, cousin." Susan said shortly, feeling slightly put-out with him. "I didn't mean to imply that Narnia's well-being isn't important, only that we haven't got any way of getting there and solving anything."

"That man...is it just me or did his face...I mean, not very much, but a little, remind anyone else of...Caspian?" Lucy blurted out, not so randomly as it might seem.

Susan, who had never quite managed to forget his face in spite of the fact that she had long gotten over any feelings she might have once had for him, agreed with Lucy. "Yes, a little...very like Caspian, only with a different nose and lighter hair."

"Reminded me a bit of Rilian, too." Jill confessed, looking over at Eustace to see if he would back her up. He did.

"His hair was the same colour as Ramandu's daughter had." Edmund added, thinking back to his last trip into the Narnian world.

"You don't think he's related to _them_..." Susan mused, her eyes widening as she spoke.

"Yes, Su, that's exactly what we think." Lucy said. She didn't say it unkindly, or even sarcastically, she just said it. It was a simple, honest statement.

"Eustace and Jill...neither of you were ever told you couldn't go back to Narnia, were you?" Polly realized; the only one of the seven who seemed to have anything to say that was going to get them anywhere.

"Well...no," a small half-smile crept up onto Jill's face. Was it possible that she could go back? She'd been longing to see that place again; it was the sort of world she wished could last for ever, seeing as she knew in her heart of hearts that the one she was born into-England's world-probably couldn't. "Do you really think...?"

"Now look here," Eustace cut in, throwing his hands in the air. "just because we weren't told we couldn't go back doesn't mean we can just go into Narnia at will, Aunt Polly." turning to Jill, he added, "It's useless to get our hopes up, Pole."

The Professor suddenly became quiet and withdrawn, taking one last deep puff on the pipe, he said in a low voice-nearly a whisper, "But would it be wrong if you could?"

"How do you mean?" Lucy, though she didn't know why, suddenly felt her cheeks growing hot with an inward, prickly-feeling sort of fear.

Polly at once understood what he meant and uttered two little words, "The rings."

And five faces gazed incredulously at her and Digory.

* * *

_England: September 5th, 1949_

_2:07 AM_

The streets of London were dead still except for the cars going by-they rolled by in a rather speedy fashion, forceful, but not with enough rage to induce anything actually resembling a din at that early morning hour-and the smog felt thicker than usual to the young medical student on his way back home to his apartment.

This young man looked rather like that hot scary place where the devil lives; one eye slightly blackened, a large gaping hole in the side of one of his boots, the smell of alcohol shooting off of his coat in a very offensive manner. He wasn't drunk, though, he'd barely had anything at all to drink at the bar he had just gotten himself kicked out of-he could barely even pass for tipsy. It was probably for the better that he'd had most of his senses and wits about him because he had _still_ managed to get himself into a bar fight being nearly sober!

It wasn't that he had wanted to cause trouble; he hadn't even meant to go to the bar in the first place. It was just that his study-group (which he joined only because one of his professors threatened to lower his grades if he didn't) had all gone and had somehow managed to talk him into coming.

You would never believe that the mess of a man who had turned the corner and was now slinking up the narrow stairs leading to his apartment-and hopefully, he thought, being nearly ready to plop down right where he was, his bed-was once the high king of Narnia.

Although Peter was much too tired to allow his mind to wander as much as he was, he let it go anyway, he had no hopes of stopping it. He found himself wondering why he hadn't walked away from that fight-why he hadn't walked away from countless others as a young school boy-he knew it wasn't because he didn't know any better, truly, he knew more than anyone that violence never solved most issues outside of out-right war...and yet...his fist had still flown...there had still been shouting and cursing and an angry bartender grabbing him by the back of his coat and hurling him outside.

When Peter reached the top of the stairs, he shakily fumbled for his keys, found them, opened the door and pretty much threw himself inside.

What has gotten into me? He wondered-feeling strangely as if he was suddenly running from something, I have a reputation to uphold and _look_ at me!

"Peter?" a concerned voice said as a light was turned on, making him jump.

"Holy-" Peter put his hand to his heart and took a deep breath when he recognized his roommate. "-oh, it's you! You gave me a fright, Warren."

Warren Roberts, Peter Pevensie's roommate, was also Susan Pevensie's boyfriend-but she had never told him about Narnia so Peter had taken a liking to hanging out with him because he was one of the few people close to him that didn't constantly try talk about his old kingdom. Plus, it helped having someone around who was willing to pay half the rent.

"Phyllis called for you." Warren told him (Phyllis was a sort of joke-name he had for Susan because the first time they had met, at a subway station, she'd wanted nothing to do with him and had lied to him about her name). "She was pretty worried when I told her you weren't home yet...she really wanted to talk to you, said it was very important."

Peter moaned and took a seat on the couch. "I'm sure it's nothing, you know how girls can get."

Warren looked like he was holding back a grimace. "Peter, why are you avoiding your siblings?"

"I'm not." Peter lied quickly and with too much false-conviction.

"You used to go on and on about how upset you were with Susan for cutting you and the others out of her life a couple years back and now you're doing the same thing." said Warren; it was very apparent that he was dead-serious because he didn't even bother calling Susan by her fake name.

"Bull manure." Peter muttered, putting his hand to his black eye.

Compassion won Warren's kind nature over when he noticed his friend was somewhat injured and he let the issue slide for the time being. "Ice pack or steak?"

"Ice pack."

"Fine." he stood up with a heavy sigh. "Sit tight, I'll be right back."

"Thanks, mate." Peter closed his eyes and-not being completely used to being worn down from anything that wasn't cramming for an exam-drifted off to sleep.


	2. On the way to the station

_England: September 11th, 1949_

_4:30 AM_

Dressed in workmen clothing that made them look-they hoped-like plumbers, Susan and Edmund quietly crept down the stairs of their parents house, holding their breath as they came to the one creaky step Mr. Pevensie had never quite gotten around to fixing.

"You go first, you're lighter." Edmund whispered to Susan, peering down through the banisters, arching his back and straining his neck just a little so that he might catch a glimpse of the large grandfather clock in the hallway below. Its ticking had never seemed quite so loud as it did that day.

Susan lightly pressed the sole of her thin brown shoe onto the hardest parts of the wooden step trying to make as little noise as possible. The last thing they needed was for their parents to come downstairs and catch them dressed like this, sneaking out of the house so early in the morning. Surely they'd also wonder why Susan had all her hair tucked up into a hat in an attempt to make herself look like a boy-although the fact that the clothing wasn't loose enough around the bust to hide her shape didn't much help that objective-and why Edmund was carrying a large toolbox with nothing in it besides two shinny, newly-brought, fold-up shovels and the family's car keys.

"Are you sure this is such a good idea?" Susan whispered as she allowed herself to exhale, finally passed the creaky step.

"Look, we'll just go into their backyard, dig up the old rings, and anyone who sees us will just think we're there to do something about the drains." Edmund whispered back, eyeing the top of the stairs nervously as if he thought their parents were standing there in the early-day shadows, watching them and listening to their plans.

Now off the stairs and heading towards the door, they took their coats off the hooks by the front entrance-it was going to be a chilly day-and walked outside onto the porch.

Tears filled Susan's eyes quite unexpectedly and Edmund stopped, turning to her to ask what the matter was.

"It should have been Peter going with you to do this." said Susan, in a choked-up tone he hadn't heard her use since she had found one of their old chess pieces during her last trip to Narnia. "I can't take his place...I can't..."

A warm, brotherly arm slipped around Susan's shoulders, steadying her. "Shh...it's okay...it's going to be fine."

Although he was trying to comfort her it actually only made her feel worse because his tone, his affectionate way of speaking, reminded her of the way Peter used to talk to them. If it had been Lucy, she would have broken down right there, but Susan was less trusting of her emotions and managed to get a hold of herself and keep the remaining tears in check.

"Ed?" Susan blinked at him sadly. "Do you think maybe it's not too late? I mean, if we swung by his apartment and tried to explain face-to-face how important this is-not just to us, but to Narnia-do you think he would come?"

What Edmund said next surprised her. "Would _you_ have?"

She felt her heart sink; she knew the truth: if Peter had come to her about something like this back when she had given up her friendship with Narnia, she wouldn't have come. She would have laughed pretend-merrily, called him a silly goose, and then gone off and done whatever she felt like doing-paying the poor Narnians no mind whatsoever.

"No," Susan admitted quietly, looking very somber. "but he would have tried, I _know_ he would have."

"Fine, then." he said, knowing there was nothing else for it. "We'll stop at Peter's place on the way."

"Keys, please." said Susan, holding out the palm of her left hand in Edmund's direction.

"Here." he reached down into the toolbox, rummaged around in there for a second, located what he was looking for, and then pressed the car keys into his elder sister's hand.

"Mum and dad aren't going to like it when they find out we took the car without asking." Susan realized as Edmund opened the door and climbed into the passenger seat.

Edmund winced. "Tell me about it."

"They'll have to get a ride to the station going to Bristol with one of their friends, there's no way we could get back in time." she said, starting up the car. "We have to meet the others when their train comes in."

"Bristol?" Edmund echoed pensively.

"Yes, what about it?"

"Why are they going to Bristol?"

"Dad has some sort of lecture he's giving there, what's the big deal?"

"Susan, if they're going to Bristol they'll end up on the same train as Lucy and the rest-they'll all be on the same train and they probably won't even know it."

"Fancy that!" said Susan as she put her foot on the gas, knowing well that her little brother was probably right, being the sort of young man who knew a lot about trains, railways, and schedules.

* * *

_England: September 11th, 1949_

_4:57 AM_

Peter yawned and started to sit up; there was a knock at the door. He wondered for a moment if he'd slept in late by mistake until he caught sight of the rather ugly-looking, poo-coloured wall clock at the far end of the bedroom (it had come with the apartment). Why was someone pounding on the door at this hour? It occurred to Peter suddenly that he wasn't a morning person anymore. He'd once been, he had used to love getting up early and doing all sorts of things before breakfast; now he hated it. Now he just wanted to sleep-to sleep and to work and to study. Nothing else. What was the point? What other conceivable reason did he even have for getting up in the morning? Except possibly to get the daily news and he didn't even care about _that_ all that much anymore, either.

"I'll get it!" Warren's voice called as the thud of his feet raced passed Peter's bedroom to the front door of the apartment.

Standing there in the doorway was none other than Susan. She wore a thick black coat over her workman clothes so that Warren wouldn't see them and wonder what she was up to (part of her really wanted to tell him everything-about Narnia-and secretly wished she'd done so earlier, but she knew the whole 'I was once a queen in another world' thing was too big a bombshell to just drop in his lap at this hour when she didn't even have enough time to explain it properly) and she'd taken off her hat; stuffing it into a dead-looking decorative house-plant near the doormat to grab on her way out.

"Phyllis?" Warren rubbed his eyes, wondering if he was dreaming or else wasn't seeing right because he didn't have his glasses on. "What are you doing here at..." He squinted at the clock in the living room. "...five in the morning?"

"I can't stay long, honey." She told her boyfriend apologetically. "Edmund's waiting in the car, I just have to talk to Peter about something."

Suddenly it struck him that he wasn't wearing a shirt and he raced back into his room to throw one over his head, feeling rather self-conscious now that his girlfriend was visiting. Over his shoulder he called, "Make yourself at home, Phyllis!-Peter, company!-there's cake in the fridge if anyone wants it!" (Of course no one actually wanted cake at that hour but he had thought it impolite not to offer anyway).

As soon as Susan saw Peter's face when he came out of his room, she knew-if she hadn't already-that there was no way he was going to come; no amount of reasoning was going to change his mind, but she still felt she had to try.

After all, she thought to herself brokenly over and over again, he wouldn't have given up on _you_ without giving it everything he had first.

"Peter," she started, taking a seat on the edge of a chair and looking him directly in the eyes, ignoring his scowl of annoyance and confusion over her unexpected arrival. "we need to talk."

"I'm going to go for a jog." Warren announced, leaving his girlfriend with a brief kiss on the cheek, sensing the two siblings needed some time alone.

"You've never gone for a jog in your life!" Peter retorted furiously.

As soon as Warren disappeared from the doorframe and down the back stairs, Susan's hands reached for those of her elder brother. "Listen to me, please."

* * *

_A cafe in England: September 11th, 1949_

_5:36 AM_

Aquamarine blew on her cup of hot tea and waited until the waiter had his back turned. She shifted her legs awkwardly, not having used them in a few months (she had been away with her family and they never used theirs, they always had their fishtails, they were proud of them. Aquamarine was proud of hers, too, but with less intensity and more stubbornness). When she was certain no one was watching, she reached for the little salt shaker on the other side of the table. It was hard to drink anything that didn't have salt in it-like the ocean-she couldn't barely keep it down at all. Quickly and skillfully, she unscrewed the top and dumped its contents into her teacup. She'd gotten enough disgusted looks from people who had happened to see her eating and drinking in the past to know this wasn't normal, but she still couldn't break the habit.

"Aqua?" A familiar voice said semi-excitedly. "Is that you?"

Aquamarine turned around to catch the source of the voice and locked eyes with an old friend of hers, Raymond. "Hi Ray!"

They'd had a brief boyfriend and girlfriend relationship but in the end it hadn't actually been the great romance the mermaid had dreamed of when she'd first seen him and convinced Hailey and Claire to help her win his heart. There wasn't anything wrong with him-she still liked him well enough-they just figured out that they were better off as friends.

He sat down across from her and lowered his voice. "Did you swim all the way here?"

Aquamarine's sea-blue eyes darted across the room quickly before she answered; he was one of the few people who knew what she really was and she intended to keep it that way. "Yes."

"So, how have you been?" his tone was formal, but not impolite or distant.

"Good." she answered monosyllabically. "You?"

"Great actually, I'm getting married in a week." Raymond told her-he actually had a girlfriend in England now; that was why he wasn't in Florida anymore.

She couldn't help but think that a few years ago, those same words would have broken her heart, now they were just ordinary words. "That's wonderful, I'm really happy for you."

"I knew you would be," said Raymond, letting out a mild chuckle. "I've missed you, Aqua. We're still friends, aren't we?"

The mermaid nodded rapidly. "Yes, of course!"

"Good, I'm glad." he smiled and sat back, slouching a little in his chair.

"I'm going to Bristol today." Aquamarine said for the sake of making conversation. "I'm meeting Claire and Hailey at the railway station."

He laughed cheerfully (she'd forgotten how much she had always liked his laugh, even in just a friendship kind of way) and sat up straight again. "I'm going by train to Bristol, too. I can give you a ride to the station if you want."

"Thank you." she took a sip of her salty tea and nodded in gratitude.

* * *

_England: September 11th, 1949._

_6:45 AM_

Peter quickly stuffed a couple pieces of dry toast into his mouth and grabbed his book satchel, flinging the strap over his shoulder. He had two exams that day and he couldn't for the life of him remember what either of them were about-his mind refused to let go of Susan's sad facial expression, her last parting glance, before she'd left. Worse, for some reason, his mind got it wrong and kept showing that same expression in an image of the wrong face, Lucy's face. Of course, that only made it even more painful. He still got a sharp pain in the pit of his stomach when he thought about his poor little Lu and how he'd hadn't spent any real time with her for what felt like for ever.

"Stupid Susan." he muttered to himself. "Why did she have to come over here like that? I _told_ her I wasn't coming."

As if on cue, Warren entered the room without knocking, clicking his tongue. "Peter, why wont you go with your family today?"

"I have exams." he said shortly, knowing that wasn't the answer to the real question his roommate was asking him.

"You _always_ have exams." this time Warren actually stood in his way so he couldn't just leave. "And I kind of got the idea that your brother and sister really wanted you to go with them-where ever it was they were heading off to."

Peter didn't answer him; he just rolled his eyes and bent down to tie his shoelace before pushing his way past Warren without another word.

"Peter..."

He spun around quickly, almost dropping his satchel. "Look, just drop it, please. I'm asking you as a friend."

"But-"

"No, let it go, Warren."

"You can't go through life like this." Warren said. It was very much the worse thing he could have said to Peter at that moment and he instantly regretted his words, sensible and innocent as they were, simply because he knew without being told that he had sounded exactly like Peter's siblings when he said them.

Bitterly, having no notion of the tragedy that would befall him later that day, changing everything he knew-everything he believed and refused to believe-for ever, Peter replied, "Watch me."


	3. The train crash

_England: September 11th, 1949_

_7:15 AM_

"Chilly today." Professor Kirke commented as Polly started to blow on her old, almost ghostly-white knuckles.

"Aren't you well, Aunt Polly?" Eustace had to ask, his voice, which had just started to break and often varied from squeaky and boyish to a deeper tone similar to that of his cousin, Edmund, came out more like the latter.

"I'm fine, dear, just a little cold." she answered in a grandmotherly sort of voice.

He started to take off his coat. "Here, you can wear this over your shoulders."

"No, it's quite alright." Polly assured him, reaching out and patting the side of his cheek affectionately; because she didn't have any children of her own, the Pevensies, their cousin, and the Pole girl had all become like sons and daughters to her and she loved them all dearly. That was why it hurt her to think about Peter and how much he'd changed as of late. Perhaps not so much as it hurt Digory, who-having once been his personal tutor-was much closer to the eldest Pevensie than she was, but it still hurt all the same. It hurt so much to think that she wouldn't see him standing there when they pulled into the station waiting with the rings. She knew she would see Edmund and Susan standing alone; their solemn cheeks pitched red with cold.

"Do you think they've got the rings yet?" Jill whispered to Lucy in a faint, breathy voice.

"I hope so." said Lucy, not wanting to even think about all the mishaps that might befall her brother and sister, preventing them from getting a hold of the only way they could think of getting Jill and Eustace to Narnia. Not for one moment had she forgotten the face of the Narnian man who had appeared to them exactly one week ago. Nor had she stopped thinking about her eldest brother and the fact that he hadn't been there.

"Me too." Jill seemed to be speaking to herself more so than to Lucy or Eustace; her voice was very soft, almost inaudible.

Sighing to herself, Lucy gently stroked the side of her golden chain-bracelet as if it were something warm and alive, watching the heart sway back and forth, gleaming in the gray morning light hovering over the open-air station.

* * *

_England: September 11th, 1949_

_7:18 AM_

Raymond and Aquamarine wandered through the reasonably-crowded train station. Only Raymond carried any suitcases; Aquamarine carried nothing at all. The mermaid flushed blue with the excitement and novelty of the trip she was about to take, looking around eagerly for Hailey and Claire. She found them at last standing by a newsstand. Claire was reading an article about injured soldiers looking for part-time work while Hailey gulped down a bottle of apple juice she'd purchased on the way.

"Hey!" Raymond called to them, waving his free hand-the one not locked firmly around the handle of his suitcase-at them.

"Hi!" exclaimed Hailey, the first to notice him.

Claire was too engrossed in the article and hadn't even noticed their friends had arrived until a firm elbow from Hailey lightly hit the side of her ribs.

"So what time are we leaving?" Aquamarine's eyes were shinning like sapphires.

Hailey looked up at the thick-rimmed black clock hanging over the newsstand. "In about three minutes, when the train pulls in."

"Mind if I sit with you, ladies?" Raymond asked, adding a mild chuckle at the end of his sentence.

"Of course not." the three of them blurted out at the same time before bursting into random laughter even though it really wasn't _that_ funny.

A light gust of wind suddenly blew through the station, sending Claire's flower-pattern hat to the other side of the cold cobblestone and cement ground. She chased after it, reaching the hat just as someone else, a fair-haired girl with a pleasant-looking round face, picked it up.

"Oh, hello," said Claire, having a strange rather impulsive urge to curtsy to the girl though she didn't know why. Needless to say, she kept her legs completely straight in spite of herself.

"Here, this must be yours." the girl stretched out her hand and gave the hat back.

"Thanks." Claire smiled gratefully.

"Windy today." the girl commented.

"Yeah, sure is." she agreed.

"I'm Lucy." said the girl, holding her hand out.

Claire shook it. "Claire."

"Pleased to meet you." Lucy seemed to have a strange combination of friendliness with an underlining regal superiority that she managed to show without letting it become over-bearing.

"Where are you heading off to?" Claire wasn't sure if it would be rude to ask, so she voiced it in as mild a tone as possible.

"One of the stops right before Bristol." Lucy told her, glancing over her shoulder at the clock though the newsstand was a fair distance away now. "The train should be arriving in a minute."

"That's the train we're taking, too."

"We?"

"Me and my friends."

"Oh."

"Here they come now." Hailey arrived with a nearly breathless Aquamarine trotting rather ungracefully behind her, carrying Claire's suitcase so that it didn't get left behind.

As soon as Aquamarine locked eyes with Lucy, she felt the same strange sensation as Claire had, only a little stronger perhaps because she had an odd inclination that if Lucy didn't already know what she was, she would soon be well aware of it-that she knew her kind from somewhere. And yet, she felt no sense of horror at being found out as if she knew deep down that Lucy could be trusted. Still, it wasn't exactly comfortable, either. It was almost like having her tail forming right there in the middle of the station, in clear view of the world. She shook her hand and introduced herself while the others (Raymond, Hailey, Claire, Lucy, Jill, Eustace, Polly, and Digory) were all making friends with one another.

Hailey and Jill hit it off almost instantly, finding out that they had a lot in common and quickly discovering they had as much to talk about between them as if they had gone to school together and known one another all their lives.

Though she felt a little shy of them at first, Claire rather liked Polly and Digory. They were-she thought-rather like her grandparents who had raised her after her mother and father had died and could even picture, very easily in her mind, Digory and her grandfather, Maury, sitting side by side on the wrap-around porch back at her house in Florida smoking their pipes together. She didn't know for sure that Digory was a smoker-he didn't actually smell very strongly of tobacco at the time-but she guessed.

Eustace was glad enough to talk to Raymond seeing as the only other male he'd had a chance to converse with all day was Digory-and he was old.

They'd all just started to get to know each other when the train pulled up with a deafening screech that made Aquamarine put her hands to her ears and moan. None of the others did, even though they didn't find the sound at all nice either, they were used to trains. Lucy noticed Aquamarine's pained expression and deeply-arched frown of displeasure but no one else seemed to. Hailey and Claire were used to their mermaid friend's unfamiliarity with most human things and probably wouldn't have thought much of it even if they had been looking in her direction at the time.

When they had all boarded the train-annoyed mermaid included-they all took seats close to each other so as to finish their conversations without extended interruptions.

* * *

 _England (the other railway station):_ _September 11th, 1949._

_7:35 AM_

"Edmund Pevensie, don't you dare!" Susan said firmly, noticing her brother looking curiously down at the rings in his hands. He was protected from their effects because of the thick leather gloves he was wearing, but his sister had noticed the change in his face and sensed his impulse almost before it even hit him.

"I wouldn't." Edmund decided in a rather gloomy voice. "Aslan doesn't want me back in Narnia and what's the point of looking for other worlds besides it? Now, I mean."

"But you were thinking about it." said Susan, arching her brow challengingly.

He was used to her challenges so he returned her glance with a warmly, brotherly smile. "Only for a moment."

"I'm almost glad it can't be me." Susan murmured, her voice sounding small all of a sudden. "That Aslan said we weren't to go back...because if it were possible...oh, Ed! I've only just started to realize how much I used to depend on Pet-you back in Narnia. I couldn't stand on my own two feet even then."

"Yes you could." Edmund assured her, tilting his head in a surprisingly comforting fashion. "And you still can. You came back to us all on your own, remember?"

"Do you think Jill and Eustace can do it?" Susan asked, her eyes suddenly flashing with hints of fear and doubt. "They're so young."

"Peter was younger than that when he fought the battle of Beruna." Edmund pointed out.

"Oh, Peter! Don't mention _him_ to me." Susan snorted, tossing back her head, looking-however unwittingly-very prim.

"He was _that_ beastly to you this morning?" Edmund winced, he didn't like thinking of his brother as the moody, overly studious stranger he had become either.

"The worst of it is that I can't even stay mad at him because I keep thinking that I...that I might have been worse, still." Susan faltered, shaking her head as if the unsteady motion could somehow clear her mind and cause everything to make sense again. "One moment I'm so furious I could smack him and the next..."

"I know what you mean." Edmund sighed, clutching the rings in the one hand tightly and gently wrapping the other around his elder sister's fingers.

* * *

_On board the Train: September 11th, 1949_

_8:15 AM_

"So, Jill, are you still in school?" Hailey asked, moving a lock of stray hair out of her eyes so she could see after her attempts to simply blow it aside failed.

"Yes, Eustace and I are." She motioned over at Lucy who was playing with her chain-bracelet again. "Lucy's just finished."

"Is someone going to meet you in Bristol?" Polly asked Claire who was looking out the window, causally biting the edge of her lower lip as she often did when she was distracted or in deep thought.

"Hailey's mom." she explained, turning around to face her now.

"That's so pretty." Aquamarine said, looking down at Lucy's bracelet.

"Thanks, my brother gave it to me." Lucy smiled weakly, she could never keep a full smile on her face when she thought of him these days.

"Can I try it on?" for the first time in her life, Aquamarine almost felt a prick of guilt at asking for something; she had been a little spoiled growing up and then during her friendship with Hailey and Claire and that made her a little selfish sometimes. Now though, she thought for a fleeting moment that she had asked for something she had no right to have, even temporarily.

Strangely enough, Lucy felt her fingers reach for the clasp after only a brief moment of awkward hesitation. Surely no one who admired the bracelet so much would do it any harm. Her arm felt sort of naked without it though and her eyes keep looking nervously at the impression the chain had left on her skin as if it was a birth mark that wasn't supposed to be completely visible in public.

A few seconds later, Aquamarine felt the chain being linked around her arm and she watched the little heart pendant moving back and forth before it settled and rested, hanging in one general spot.

"It's pretty." the mermaid repeated as if she didn't have another original thought to share on the matter but felt she must say _something_ no matter how simple-minded it made her sound.

"We're coming close to our stop now." said Digory-although how he knew that without even looking out the window was uncertain.

Lucy forgot about the bracelet for a moment. "Can you see Susan and Edmund?"

Eustace leaned over Claire to peer out the window; he didn't see them. "Nope, not yet."

"They're probably just a little further up." Jill guessed.

"Hey, is it just me or does this train seem to be speeding up?" Hailey wondered aloud.

"You feel it, too?" Polly blinked at her. "I thought I was just getting bad motion sickness again, confusing myself."

"No, Hailey's right," Raymond decided, his eyes widening slightly. "It _is_ going faster."

* * *

_The platform: September 11th, 1949_

_8:23 AM_

"Something's not right." Edmund mouth filled with extra saliva which he swallowed quickly in a nervous gulp. "Why is the train coming around the bend so quickly?"

Susan's own mouth felt dry as dust and she would have given nearly anything for a glass of water at the moment if she hadn't been too busy wondering about the train herself. "I don't know...Surely it'll slow down in a moment, Ed."

It didn't, but even then they didn't realize what was about to happen. Not until it was much too late.

* * *

_On the train: September 11th, 1949_

_8:25 AM_

"Thanks for letting me try it on." Aquamarine was saying rather graciously-for her, anyway-just as Lucy was reaching over to unhook the bracelet from her wrist.

"You're welcome." Lucy might have said something-anything-else if she'd known those were going to be the last words she would ever speak in the world she was born in.

The train jolted, seeming to jump-no, more like flying than jumping. People screamed. Jill and Eustace vanished. Digory put his arm in front of Polly protectively. Claire grabbed onto Hailey's hand and squeezed it as hard as she could. Aquamarine was almost hit by a piece of luggage falling off of the rack above them but it hit the back of Lucy's head first, knocking the former queen of Narnia over to the other side of the train. Something else-maybe a heavy handbag-did strike the side of the mermaid's head, turning the world around her black and very quiet.

When Aquamarine opened her eyes a while later, she found the world still black but in a different way; the air smelt burnt and her whole body ached. She knew at once that she had a sharp cut near one of her brows because debris and dust kept falling into it, making it smart terribly. Not knowing what else to do, she stretched out her hand into a small opening. The air that hit her wrist felt cooler, cleaner somehow as well. Of course she was longing to pull her whole body out with it but there wasn't enough space for that.

Someone touched the side of her hand and a male voice shouted, "Lucy!"


	4. Deaths and wreckage

_England: September 11th, 1949._

_8:45 AM_

Sitting in the classroom looking down at the blank side of their exam papers, waiting-some with eagerness, others with dread-for their professor to turn the red sand filled, silver-framed hourglass over and say in his usual drone of a voice, "Begin.", were exactly forty-three medical students.

One young man in the back hummed loudly to himself until the fellow closest to his seat reached over and whacked him in the arm with a text book, shooting the eagle-eyed professor a pretend-innocent glance when he looked their way. As it happened, it wasn't the whack that upset the professor, rather, it was the fact that there was a text book out in the open right before his exam-which he quickly confiscated.

An unfortunate-looking chap with crusted braces and bad acne in the front row was chewing on his pencil so hurriedly that some of the less-intelligent students (mostly dumpy-faced young men who had gotten into the school on their families' old money and no real merits of their own), thought there was a rabid beaver on the loose.

As for Peter-who was sitting in a middle row, not actually anywhere near the front or back of the room-he sat still with his hands folded under the desk, cracking his knuckles lightly on the side of the wood. He waited expectantly for the bead of sweat-the one that always came at moments like this-to trickle down his forehead. It gave him quite a shock when he realized it wasn't coming. No matter how long he'd studied or how well he knew the material he always had at least a short second of breathless worry right before an exam; so where was it this time? If anything at all, he should have been feeling a little _more_ nervous, not less; after all, he'd lost nearly a whole night of studying when he'd gone with the so-called study group to that bar. He should have been frightened that he was behind. But, oddly enough, he wasn't. For the first time in a long, long while, he wasn't thinking about his work; he wasn't even mulling over what he would write in the essay part of the test. No, all he could think about was his sister's visit that morning.

The memory haunted him like an unholy phantom constantly at his side. He wondered how it was possible that something that had happened just a few hours ago could feel so far away. Why was it that his heart and mind seemed to be grasping at that little memory like a drowning man? Was it guilt? True, he hadn't been as kind to his sister as he ought to have been but it felt deeper even than that. Honestly, he could come to no conclusion at all.

"Be-" the professor's hand lifted and several faces looked up at his fingers as they curled around the side of the hourglass.

To Peter, his voice sounded so far away-much further than the front of the room-much more clearly he could hear-or thought for a moment, until it seemed to fade away, that he could hear-screaming. His head ached all of a sudden and he thought he was going to be sick.

It's just pre-exam nerves, Peter desperately lied to himself-he had told so many lies to himself lately that he was starting to get rather good at it, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to be worried about.

Though he hadn't heard the professor say, "-gin", looking over to his left, Peter figured he must have because everyone else had already flipped their tests over and were working soundlessly. A person could have heard a pin drop in that room.

Suddenly there was a deep roaring sound-unmistakably that of a lion, _the_ Lion. Aslan. Oh, he sounded so angry! Peter put his hands to his ears and moaned. How was it everyone else could go on so quietly with their exam when that roar was there droning out all thought? The person to his right noticed Peter's frown, wince, and covered ears; he blinked at him in confusion before shaking his head and turning back to his paper.

Feeling a little stupid, Peter took his hands off his ears now, convinced it had only been his imagination. No one else had heard anything, he realized, lying again, telling himself that he must have been overly-tired. Oh, but his head was _swimming_! The words on the exam paper blurred and the fuzzy letters refused to stay still.

Before he even knew what was happening, he felt the clunk of the side of his forehead hitting the wood of the desk and heard one of students a row or two behind him-who happened to be rather prone to hysterics-start crying (Though whether he was crying over Peter fainting or else not knowing an answer to one of the exam questions, no one could figure out). He thought he felt the professor shake him roughly once as if he assumed Peter had merely gone to sleep in his class before it dawned on him that something really must be wrong with him after all.

* * *

_England: September 11th, 1949_

_9:23 AM_

Peter's eyelids felt heavy as he tried to force them open, thinking at first that he was still in the classroom about to take his exam. Then he put his hand to his head-there was a light lump there from where it had struck the desk.

"Ouch." he muttered to himself, rolling over and realizing suddenly that he had been laid on his side in a small wooden cot stuffed with thin white woolen blankets.

For a split-second Peter had what he always thought afterwards to be a vision of some sort because he swore-when he finally brought himself to believe in things again-that it hadn't been delirium. He saw a hospital and a dark-haired boy-well, young man, but he wore a boyish look on his face at first-lying in bed with his eyes half-closed. His face had a good many cuts on it and his cheeks-in spite of the fact that they appeared to have been cleaned-were ash-stained. There was a thick line of ebony stitches in the middle of his white forehead between the two brows.

"Where's Susan?" the boy seemed to be asking the doctor standing a few feet away from the bed-though Peter couldn't see _him_ very clearly, only the boy.

"Susan?" the doctor's voice sounded confused. "Oh, your sister?"

"Yes." the boy's voice was pale-sounding; very faint, like a river slowly drying up.

"Oh...I..." the doctor stammered.

"Don't tell me," a tear escaped from the boy's left eye. "Su died, didn't she?"

"Yes." his tone was graver now.

The boy's head sunk deeper into the pillows. "I'm going to die, too, aren't I?"

"Well..."

"Are they still getting people out from under the wreckage?" the words carried a lot of weight, clearly more than the dying boy could manage but he said them anyway.

"Yes."

"Did they find anyone in the train itself? Anyone alive, I mean." those would be the boy's last words.

"No, not yet."

The boyishness of the young man's face vanished being replaced by a very different look, the sort of expression a king wears on his deathbed. The exact kind of face people picture in their minds when they read about King Arthur dying-about to go home, to Avalon.

A nurse with a pretty, heart-shaped face and her long reddish-gold hair tucked up into her uniform cap entered the room and touched the kingly-faced young man's wrist and felt for a pulse. There was none; he was gone.

"Did you find out his name?" the nurse asked the doctor, blinking back a few tears. "Before he went?"

"Edmund," The doctor sighed, shaking his head and writing something down on his clipboard. "Edmund Pevensie."

Peter's eyes finally shot open of their own accord and he found he was breathing rather heavily, his chest moving up and down at a remarkably fast pace. He noticed the cot around him again and told himself another lie. "Only a dream. It was only a dream."

"Ah," the university's nurse (for as he now knew, he was in her office) said. "Pevensie, you're awake."

"What happened?" murmured Peter, struggling to sit up in the cot, moving aside the blankets that had been haphazardly wrapped around his middle.

"You fainted." she sounded a little bored, not exactly worried. "Right before an exam."

 _Does she think I faked it or planed it or something?_ Peter wondered, taking in her rather uninterested expression so different from that of the nurse in his 'dream'.

The nurse's face did soften slightly, but a twinge of annoyance remained. "Plenty of youths get afraid of failure right before tests, it's only natural."

"Can I have a glass of water?" Peter asked, touching his throat for dramatic effect.

The nurse sighed, grabbed a plastic cup, and went over to the sink to get some water out of the tap. Looking to the side as she stood there with the cup of water in her hand, the nurse noticed her radio standing still and soundless, not even turned on.

That's funny, she thought, I almost always have that on when I work, fancy my almost forgetting all about it today!

In a short, causal movement that Peter wouldn't have even noticed if the events that had happened that day had not occurred, she turned the radio on and tuned it for a few minutes looking for a station coming in clearly.

Just as she handed Peter the cup, the classical music that had been playing on that station stopped mid-note and a newscaster's voice burst though in a deep, urgent tone.

" _A train heading towards Bristol this morning crashed unexpectedly at one of its planned stops."_

Peter dropped the cup and his open fell open.

"Oh, god, how terrible." said the nurse, putting her hand to her heart.

Lucy was on a train going towards Bristol! Susan had told him before she'd left. Only Edmund had been in the car waiting. They were all supposed to meet at the station. The Professor, Aunt Polly, Jill Pole, Cousin Eustace, and his little Lu.

" _At least five people not on the train are reported to have been killed when the train allegedly flew off the tracks and rammed into them, taking their lives along with possibly all of the lives on board."_

Lucy! Peter thought he was going to faint again. Lucy couldn't be dead, she just couldn't. Not _his_ Lucy. She was alright, she had to be. Lucy could live through anything; she was very brave and tough. Surely she hadn't been killed. And at the platform, his other sister and his brother...they must have gotten away in time, there was no way they could die. They were too full of life to die! They were too young! Maybe none of this was real; maybe it was all just part of that weird dream. He probably hadn't even fully woken up yet.

" _Although it seems highly unlikely that there will be any survivors on board, the police, firemen, and other rescue workers are currently digging at the wreckage. The chief of police is quoted as saying, 'I don't think any of us could live with ourselves if we didn't at least try, if we didn't do our darnedest' end quote."_

That was enough for Peter who threw back the blankets and rushed out of the office without another word. He had to get to that train station right away. This _was_ real and Lucy needed him. He would not fail her, not this time, not again.

* * *

_England (A phone booth outside a local hospital): September 11th, 1949_

_9:19 AM_

A completely distraught, sobbing, thoroughly shaken up Warren reached for the pay phone and clutched it in-between his trembling fingers. His tears were like heavy rainfall hitting his glasses like a storm hitting a window and a line of snot dripped out of one of his nostrils.

He had to dial the number twice because the first time he had missed a number and had gotten a 'please try again later' recording that he knew was probably not from his roommate's university.

"Someone please pick up." his lips quivered violently as he whispered these words to himself.

"Hello, university administrator's desk, how may I help you?"

"Hello," Warren gulped hard to clear his throat so that he wouldn't be weeping into the person's ear. "I need to speak to a medical student there, his name is Peter Pevensie."

"Is that 'Pevensie' with an ie or 'Pevensy' with a y?"

"Pevensie with an ie." Warren swallowed back another sob, lifting his now-streaky glasses off of his face slightly with his free hand.

"Alright, yes, he is registered here, and you are?"

"A friend."

"A _friend_?"

"His roommate, I'm his roommate, okay?" he could usually put up with pushy people rather well-better than many others have-but he was too worked up to deal with this now.

"Fine."

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"Can you get him on the phone?"

"Who?"

"Peter!"

"Peter?"

"Peter Pevensie!" people could be so dense some times!

"Oh, you can't talk to him right now."

"Why not?" if he was a very little bit younger and less shaken, Warren probably would have stamped his foot rather childishly out of frustration.

"He's taking an exam."

"I _know_ that!" Warren shouted into the phone, almost completely losing his cool by this point.

"Sir, there is no need to shout."

"I need to talk to him."

"Who?"

"Peter!"

"I just told you, he's taking an exam."

"It's an emergency!"

"Now's not a good time for an emergency, have one later, call back in two hours during intermission between exams, yes?"

As much as it pained Warren to say it out loud, as if that somehow made it more real, more true, as if it would be alright if he just kept it to himself, he still said it. "His sister is dead!"

"Which sister?"

"Huh?"

"According to our records he has _two_ sisters."

Warren closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, praying for strength. "Susan, the elder one."

"What about the younger girl?"

"I don't know...they-hic-they never-up-found her." he had suddenly gotten a case of the hiccups and he tried to swallow them down, too. Needless to say, this effort was very much in vain, he might as well have been trying to make the phone booth fly.

"All right, I'll go get him."

"Thank you!"

A little while later the person returned to the phone and said that Peter Pevensie was not in the classroom with his classmates.

"Okay, thanks." he mumbled weakly, hanging the phone back up.

Unable to will himself to stay strong any longer, Warren slid down the side of the booth until his bottom reached the ground and his knees lightly tapped the lower half of his forehead. He sat there for about ten minutes or so, weeping to himself. It seemed that the world had ended. After all, how could it keep going without Susan? Without his dear sweet Phyllis?

* * *

_England (the train station): September 11th, 1949._

_10:00 AM_

Peter dashed through the crowded disaster site as quickly as possible. Sometimes he had to slow down or even stop moving altogether, not because his legs were tired or because he was wearing down, but because there were so many people going back and forth. Many of them were weeping. Some had collapsed onto the ground beside the marked-off lines set up by the police to keep the masses away from the smashed train itself.

When he finally got close enough, Peter completely ignored the lines and walked over them, looking around for any sign of his family. He knew he must have gone utterly mad to think that thrusting himself into the scene of destruction would do any good, but he couldn't stop himself. His mind told him that the authorities would let him know if they found anyone in his family if he just waited with everyone like a good little citizen but his heart told him, 'To heck with _that_!'

"What are you doing?" a policemen demanded.

"I need to find my family...my little sister was on this train, I think." Peter blurted out stupidly and wildly.

If the policeman had been a less kind-hearted person he would have dragged Peter away immediately but he didn't; rather, he put his hand on the frightened young man's shoulder and said, "We'll do everything we can, I promise. Now can you please wait with the others?"

"I-I-I thought I could help." Peter borderline stammered, still looking around for any signs of his siblings or his former friends. "I'm studying medicine...I...I'm not a doctor yet...but...maybe...if you needed someone good with first aid..."

"It's kind of you to offer, son, but-"

"Please." Peter looked him right in the eyes unblinkingly. "I can't just wait and do nothing."

Perhaps a bit of Peter's old high king expression had come back to him and the policemen could not refuse him or maybe he just took pity on the young medical student. Whatever the reason, Peter soon found himself standing right beside the workers searching for survivors, holding the largest first aid kit he had ever handled in his life.

At first it seemed that there was no one living to be found and Peter's heart nearly sank; though he didn't cry, he hadn't cried before when he'd heard about the crash on the radio, he hadn't cried since, and he didn't cry then either. Suddenly a hand stuck out from under the wreckage, clearly it was alive-the fingers wiggled-and on the wrist was a golden-chain bracelet with a heart pendant hanging off of it.

"Lucy!" exclaimed Peter. "It's my little sister, Lucy!"

A fireman patted his back sympathetically. "Hang in there, don't lose your head, we'll get her out."


	5. The high king and the mermaid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to my author note from way back when, I apparently had a bad cold while writing this chapter.
> 
> I literally have no memory of this alleged cold. LOL.

_England (site of the trainwreck): September 11th, 1949_

_11:20 AM_

Afterwards, Aquamarine could never fully recall the exact moments of the rescue workers pulling her out from underneath the wreckage. Everything in-between when she heard the name of the girl she, Hailey, and Claire had befriended onboard the train before it flew off the tracks and broke in a fiery, charred rubble being called, to the point where she was pulled up into a wheelchair and given warm blue-and-red plaid woolen blankets to wrap around her lap and shoulders, felt dream-like.

She grimaced at the kindly fireman who handed her a glass of water. The little beads rolling down the side had come dangerously close to touching her legs (and of course, that would have made them disappear and her tail form) but thankfully the drops fell harmlessly onto the blanket in her lap, never actually making contact with the skin on her thighs. What was more, she couldn't bring herself to actually swallow even so much as half a sip of the glass's contents-she never drank water without salt in it. Which was a real shame because she did feel rather dehydrated; her aching, bruised cheeks flushing a pale silvery colour instead of their usual blue.

Most irritating of all, she'd only gotten a few moments to catch her breath-and none at all to think over what had just happened-when a tall, blond-headed young man made his way through the tight circle of paramedics surrounding her wheelchair and collapsed at the side of it.

"Lucy..."

Then and only then did the mermaid realize that all of the men in funny-looking (to her, anyway) uniforms had been calling her that, too. "You'll be alright, Miss Lucy." -and- "Lucy Pevensie, how does it feel to be-quite possibly-the only survivor of England's biggest disaster since the bombings during the war?" Of course, Aquamarine had _heard_ all of these things, but it had happened so quickly that she wasn't really _listening_. Now it came to her mind that somehow or other she had been mistaken for the fair-haired girl with the chain-bracelet. How on earth...? She looked down at her wrist where the bracelet still glittered. Oh.

The young man grabbed onto her hand without even bothering to look up at her. If she had been a little less spoiled growing up, if she had been a little less frightened of all the commotion around her, if she had known then things she would come to know later, Aquamarine would have been more sympathetic. As it was, she could feel nothing but deep annoyance at having her hand grabbed like that.

"I am not Lucy, now get off me!" she yanked her hand away.

Peter blinked up at her as if being roused from a deep sleep. It wasn't Lucy at all! He felt like an idiot for not figuring it out sooner. In fact, this girl's hand didn't look a thing like Lucy's, not even a little bit. But wrists tend to look common enough and he had glanced only at the chain bracelet around it when he'd made his rash assumption.

"Go away!" Aquamarine pouted, managing a pretty enough sulk considering what she had just been through. She didn't want this strange man staring at her, open mouthed like a cod-fish, still hovering much too close to the wheelchair for her liking. If he wasn't official, if she didn't _need_ to put up with him, then she didn't _want_ him. "Stop staring at me!"

He didn't seem to hear her, being far too lost in his own thoughts for hers to register in his mind.

Frustrated at not getting her own way, Aquamarine hardened her already tight glare and stared right back at him. Unfortunately for her, the apparently dim-witted young man didn't even blink. For a fleeting moment, she felt sorry for him but it vanished just as quickly. The mermaid wasn't used to people being _disappointed_ when they saw her and clearly that was what was behind his shock, pure disappointment, not awe.

If she had been in the water she would have splashed him. As it was, she did the next best thing that came to her mind: to toss her glass of water in his face.

"Hey!" Peter moved his now-wet hair away from his forehead where it was clinging.

The rescue workers seemed somewhere between amused and bemused; trying to figure out what was going on. Some appeared to be holding back mild smiles and chuckles at their expense.

"You heard me! Scram!" The space between the mermaid's pale eyebrows creased irritably and her sea-blue eyes darkened a full shade to navy-blue and filled up with hot tears which she refused to acknowledge by blinking.

Trying very hard to remain calm, Peter looked down at the chain bracelet again. "Where did you get that?"

Aquamarine didn't answer him but her already hardened glare did grow rather icy and bitter.

"Look here," Peter tried, speaking through his teeth now.

"Oh, go away and mind your own business, will you?" she snapped.

"Listen, I don't know who you think you are but-"

"I'm Aquamarine." the mermaid pouted again.

"What?" his brow crinkled in confusion.

"I don't _think_ I'm anybody, I _am_ Aquamarine."

He scowled back at her, uncomprehending.

"It's my _name_ , half-wit!" she barked at him.

"I'm Peter." he responded somewhat begrudgingly, not able to bring himself to add a quick 'nice to meet you' at the end. Truly it wasn't at all nice to meet her; he already thoroughly disliked the bratty little nightmare with the stormy eyes that were disturbingly similar to angry, choppy waves breaking on a shoreline.

"Whatever."

"What is your problem?" Peter said flat out, folding his arms across his chest.

"My problem is that I was just in a train crash...and my friends..." her voice trailed off and the tears she had fought back escaped and erupted.

Aquamarine's sobs and heavy wails made Peter feel guilty as if he had personally bullied her until she'd broken down and cried. Of course he still disliked her but he couldn't abide the shaking sobs. He could argue steadily enough but not when someone of the female sex was falling to bits right in front of him. It was sort of hard to watch.

More than a little awkwardly he offered the sobbing young lady slumping in the wheelchair his handkerchief which she blew loudly into until she regained her tranquility-or at least, what was left of it-then she tossed the snot-covered piece of cloth back at him.

"Gee, thanks!" Peter snipped sarcastically, having already forgotten his former pity.

"So," a paramedic with a clipboard nodded solemnly at them. "can we get a statement from the two of you before you go home?"

"Good luck getting anything from _her_." Peter muttered under his breath.

"Can someone please get _him_ away from me?" said Aquamarine, leaning on the edge of the left side of the wheelchair to where the more burly-looking officers were standing, motioning over at Peter.

"That's it, I'm leaving." this was hopeless. Lucy was gone, he had failed to do any good, and there was no point in sticking around and trying to talk to the rude girl any longer. The only thing that was bugging him about her was the mystery of why she was wearing his little sister's bracelet. It was one of a kind and how this strange person could have gotten it-or something as alike as two peas in a pod-was beyond him.

"Amen." muttered Aquamarine.

"Aren't you going to take your sister home?" someone asked.

"She's not my sister." Peter said rather curtly, prepared to turn sharply on his heels and speed-walk away from the train station-away from this horrible place that had destroyed everyone he had once cared about-as quickly as possible.

"Oh, sorry for the misunderstanding, then." A short pot-bellied officer said in an off-hand sort of manner.

"Is someone coming for you, miss...?" A fireman asked the mermaid who, now that she realized she was about to be left in the middle of the station all alone with no one to look after-or even to quarrel with-her, was suddenly hit by a wave of intense loneliness. Even fighting, hating, and bickering was better than being lost and numb. At least with hate one could still _feel_ something.

"I don't think so." her voice was small and piteous as it faltered uneasily.

Peter made the mistake of turning around and glancing at her one last time over his shoulder. She looked so helpless, even childlike, and he felt like had been punched in the stomach. Leaving her there suddenly felt akin to abandoning a small, motherless, yowling kitten on a sidewalk just because it scratched and hissed a little. He couldn't just walk away and leave her like that. What if he just took her back to stay with himself and Warren at their apartment for a little while-just until they someone in her own family willing to take her in?

No, no, no, no bloody way, Peter thought to himself as he tried to decide what to do, you know she wouldn't accept help from you anyway, so it's pointless to...

No one was coming for her and the paramedics exchanged puzzled glances, all of them quite at a lost as far as what they should do.

"No," Peter muttered under his breath, not nearly as firmly as he would have preferred. "No way am I taking _her_ back to my apartment. Someone else is just going to have to step in and do something. I sure as anything am _not_ taking her in!"

* * *

_England (Peter and Warren's apartment): September 11th, 1949_

_1;45 PM_

Warren was sitting alone at the kitchen table with all the lights turned off and the shutters tightly drawn. One elbow was propped weightily on the table and the hand attached to it cradled his aching for head. Crying all day could really take it's toll on a person, but he hardly felt that pain, loosing Susan-and knowing her family all except for Peter were probably gone, too-hurt far worse.

The door swung open making him jump. Looking at the now-open entry way he saw Peter pushing a wheelchair in which sat a very extraordinary-looking lady. Her hair was long and pale and her complexion a slivery-white with a seemingly blue tint to it. Her initial prettiness did not transcend into her facial expression in the least, however; her scowl was deep and Peter certainly didn't look any happier.

"Peter, who is that?" Warren asked him, standing up now.

Peter's nose wrinkled as if he'd smelled something fowl in the room. "Trainwreck refugee..." he held up his right palm and shook his head. "...don't ask."

"I'm Aquamarine." she spoke for herself.

"Warren." he offered his hand.

She saw the same pain she'd sensed in Peter's eyes earlier when she looked at him but it was softer, unmarred by any pretense of fake long-suffering or pride. She swallowed what she herself still had of the latter and shook the out-stretched hand.

"How long are you going to be staying with us?" Warren asked politely.

"Not long." Peter answered for her. He didn't actually know if that was true or not but in the distressed frame of mind he was in, he was probably thinking he would _make_ it true if he had to.

* * *

_England (Peter and Warren's apartment): September 11th, 1949_

_5:55 PM_

Aquamarine had noticed something that struck her as sort of odd. Once she had gotten over her appalling situation (the fact that she had lost all of her friends in one horrific moment and then had been taken to live-for a little while-with this pompous young man who she most certainly did _not_ like at all) she started to pay closer attention to things and noticed that Peter showed no signs of tears either present, future, or past. Presumably he _could_ cry; he was not incapable of it, he had to have cried at least a few times in his life, but when his whole family was gone-just like-that, he didn't cry at all.

She had wept for Claire, Hailey, and Raymond when it had come to her mind that she would never see any of them again-her eyes were marred by red circles now. Warren had wept more than once, both in front of her and by himself. Still, Peter didn't even get misty-eyed.

His stern-faced reaction reminded the mermaid of a time when she had been very little, perhaps nine or so, and had, out of annoyance, killed a teeny sea-snail by whacking it very hard against a rock with the bottom of her fin. It couldn't talk and she doubted, especially now that she was older, if it could even think like merfolk, humans, and animals could but she was instantly hit with a wave of guilt she hadn't expected to feel. For three days, dry-eyed and sour-faced, she had thought about the life she'd carelessly snuffed out. Part of her wanted to cry for the snail but she'd kept telling herself it wouldn't bring it back and that there was no real reason to bother. Years later, she thought maybe she ought to have cried anyway because in spite of its lack of ability to bring the snail back, it might have made _her_ feel better.

Peter, she thought, was a little like her nine-year-old self in a way. He had distanced himself emotionally from the situation so that his once-beloved siblings were like that sea-snail; small and unimportant. And he wouldn't weep for them because he was smart enough to know it wouldn't bring them back.

The mermaid was so lost in deep thought that she didn't even realize the sun was setting until the light that came in through the windows started to turn a dimmer yellow. The tip of her tail-which had of course formed in the wheelchair she was still seated in-showed for a second at the bottom of the plaid blankets in her lap.

Warren didn't see the fish-tail or even notice Aquamarine's haste to cover up something at the bottom of the wheelchair, but Peter did and in spite of the fact that he didn't say a word about it, she knew he had seen everything.


	6. Wishes and secrets

_England (apartment bathroom): September 12th, 1949_

_12:01_ _AM_

Aquamarine couldn't sleep. The fact that she hadn't been able to reach the door latch and she could be walked in on at any given moment certainly wasn't welcoming the idea of a pleasant slumber. When she was sure both Peter and Warren were asleep (or _thought_ she was sure), she had wheeled the wheelchair into the bathroom (Warren had showed her where it was earlier) and closed the door behind her. She had been starting to feel as dry as dust and was almost positive that if she didn't get those wretched blankets off of her lap and find some cool water to rest her tail in, she would be nothing but a pile of green dust by the time the young men woke up.

If she had been a less strong-willed person, she might have actually submitted herself to that in hopes of ending it all, but that had never been her way. An overt sense of self-preservation was one of the few blessings that tended to come along with the curse of unbreakable stubbornness-something she and Peter definitely had in common.

Peter, she had thought about him as she had slipped off of the wheelchair and into the tub with a little push. It occurred to her that her tail, in spite of the fact that she'd had her legs when she'd been in the railway accident, had suffered, too. It was bruised up in some of the same exact places as her legs were. She guessed-probably correctly-that a dark circle where a few scales were missing represented a bruised knee. What frightened her far more than a few fairly minor injuries was the fact that Peter had seen the tail for himself and hadn't said _anything_.

If he had shown revulsion, she could have so easily shown it right back. If he had reacted in a way that made it seem as though he planned to tell someone about her and what she really was, then she would have known that she had to escape from this apartment somehow. If he had been frightened, how easily she could have turned up her nose and let him be scared in hopes that he would keep her true identity to himself. But how on earth-land or sea-was a person supposed to know what to do about something when another person's reaction was no reaction at all? As if they were blind. But he _wasn't_ blind; he had looked right at her! Right at the tip of her fin! She was sure of it! So why was he being indifferent? Wasn't he going to at least tell Warren? They seemed close enough for that.

The water in the tub felt lovely on Aquamarine's aching tail but it also had another effect on her; making her homesick for the ocean, a feeling she only got when she was very, very upset. Normally, she didn't much like her fussy, over-protective older sisters, or her good-hearted but controlling father and wanted to get away from them. She wanted to be off on her own having exciting adventures with her friends and maybe even falling in love for real some day. The train crash had changed all that; she didn't even _have_ friends anymore and she thought she would almost like to give up love-in all its forms-for ever if only it would ensure she would find herself safely in her own world at the bottom of the ocean with all the things that, while not held at all dear, were familiar.

Tears came and she knew that-no matter what Hailey had once told her-she was indeed failing apart; this wasn't natural. If this was what loving something did to you, she wasn't so sure she wanted it anymore. She had let herself love the two human girls and tried to make herself love Raymond, too. Now all three of them were gone.

"I'm leaking salt water;" Aquamarine whispered to herself in-between sobs. "I know you're supposed to leak up here when you cry...I know...but I'm not so sure I like it-that it doesn't make it worse somehow."

* * *

_England (Peter's room): September 12th, 1949_

_12:07 AM_

One of the reasons Peter had said nothing at all when he'd seen Aquamarine for what she really was, was that, oddly enough, it hadn't shocked him or made him feel uneasy the way it might have for most humans. Even Warren would have been startled if he had been the one to see it. But Peter couldn't shake the feeling that he had once been around creatures, if not just like the mermaid now staying in his apartment, then close enough, on a daily basis. He thought of his last conversation with Susan.

 _"You were the high king of Narnia.",_ she had said, her sensible, non-joking face not so much as flinching while she spoke.

It wasn't real; it couldn't have been real. A magic wardrobe, killing a wolf, a talking Lion dying and coming back to life, a battle against a pirate-like nation called the Telmarines, crowns and creatures, and raids against giants? How could any of it have really happened outside of a make-believe story told to amuse his littlest sister, Lucy? Maybe it was because he'd heard the stories-retold by his siblings and, for some odd reason, Professor Kirke and Aunt Polly, too-so many times that his subconscious had almost started to believe in them. The thing was, however, that it _hurt_ to believe in things. Especially now.

Then there was the problem with _not_ believing; it was sort of impossible, even for someone as good at pretending and lying to himself as Peter had gotten, to act as though he hadn't seen the bottom of a fish's tail where a woman's feet ought to have been just a few hours ago. And he knew he was almost indifferent to it, which almost meant he had to believe in the other stuff, all that mess about Narnia, too. No, he decided, there may have been a mermaid living in his home right now but there was no Narnia. Whatever the reason for his calm acceptation of it was, it had nothing to do with some place where he ruled over a land of centaurs and fauns and talking beasts.

He rolled over in the bed and tossed and turned a little. Sleep refused to come; his eyes kept snapping back open after barely a second of being closed. It was then that he realized that a sound he had been hearing for quite a while now but had not given much thought to, was crying-coming from the bathroom. Peter knew it wasn't Warren-he'd heard his roommate cry himself to sleep over two hours ago-and that it must have been Aquamarine. Without really understanding why he was doing it-of course the little brat wouldn't appreciate any efforts on his part so why make them?-he got up and walked out of the room. A minute later he was knocking on the bathroom door.

"Can I come in?"

"No," The mermaid's muffled, weepy voice came back through the door. "Go away!"

"Look, I think we need to talk." he tried to make his tone sound a little nicer but he failed at it for the most part.

"I don't want to talk to you, go away."

"You know I know, don't you?"

"Know what?" Aquamarine tried to make her voice sound tough but it quivered a little too much for that.

"I'm not going to talk about it through the door, this is getting ridiculous." said Peter, putting his hand to the knob, knowing full-well the door wasn't actually locked.

"Don't you dare just barge in here." said Aquamarine as though she was reading his mind. "You do that and...and..." she racked her brain for a good punishment. "I'll drown you! I'll do it! I swear I'll do it!"

"This is my apartment." Peter reminded her, oddly enough almost feeling the desire to laugh. "Besides, I'm not going to hurt you or sell you to the zoo or trap you in a net or anything, I just don't want to stand here shouting and wake Warren up."

That worked, Aquamarine may have hated Peter but she liked Warren well enough and didn't want to wake him up either.

In a small voice that sounded rather mouse-like she said, "Promise?"

Peter fought back a chuckle. "I promise."

"Alright, come in." it was stupid the way she felt so in control considering he could have just stormed in without her consent if he'd really wanted to, but she wasn't used to being powerless and admitting to herself that she was on someone else's turf so to speak would have frightened her.

The knob twisted and Peter walked in. "You decent?"

Aquamarine had to admit that whatever else he was (pompous, annoying, rude, stuck-up, conceited, self-satisfied...), he still showed gentlemanly behavior for the most part, not even looking directly at her until she assured him she was covered up.

Sighing deeply, thinking that this was pointless and how badly he wanted to go back to sleep, Peter put the toilet's lid down and sat on it.

Aquamarine flapped her tail awkwardly. "So, what are you going to do now that you know?"

Peter's forehead crinkled and he shrugged his shoulders. "Nothing."

" _Nothing_?" she echoed.

"Am I supposed to do something?" he asked.

"No," Aquamarine rolled her eyes. "but I guess I have to grant you a wish." she didn't want to give him anything but she realized now that she didn't have a choice.

"A wish?" Peter repeated, dumbstruck.

"You know, a wish, like when you want something and-"

"I know what it means!"

Aquamarine arched her brows and rolled her eyes apathetically.

"But what are you talking about?" Peter rubbed his eyes tiredly but he knew he still had no hopes of getting to sleep anytime soon.

"Because you helped me." she didn't seem at all pleased by what she was saying; her nose turned up and her lips pursed. "Plus now you know I'm a mermaid and you aren't going to tell anyone. You help a mermaid, you get a wish, that's how it works. Why do you think my family doesn't like to be around humans much? Because then lots of idiots help them out accidentally and poof! Some lout with half a brain gets a wish."

"You can't pick and choose who you give wishes to?" Peter asked, wondering why on earth he was talking about such an absurd notion in the most lucid of tones.

"Of course not." Aquamarine's eyes darkened and flashed angrily at him, a sight he was almost getting used to by this point. "The only way out of it is sometimes if they don't know we're merfolk and they do something to help us...then we just give then the first thing they seem to want and we go away."

"And now that I know, I have to pick something?"

She nodded grimly. "Yup, pretty much."

"Can you bring Lucy back?" Peter didn't know what came over him and possessed him to ask that, but somehow, though it felt stupid to ask for anything at all, it felt greedy to ask for them all to come back. Maybe if he'd given the matter more thought he would have tried to wish that the railway accident had never happened, but he didn't really think much at all before he blurted it out.

For the first time since she'd met him, Aquamarine liked something about him-his love for his youngest sister. All he wanted was his littlest sibling back, poor thing. Sadly, she knew she couldn't give it to him. Now she felt sort of bad about throwing her glass of water in his face at the train station, thinking about how horrible it must have been for him to find _her_ instead of Lucy waiting there for him.

"I can't bring back the dead, Peter." Aquamarine's voice actually came out soft and gentle when she said that. "I'm sorry."

"That's fine." he swallowed and shook his head, starting to stand up. "I don't want anything, alright? You just stay here until you're ready to go back to the sea or where ever, I wont bother you."

"But you have to wish for something, not right now of course, but you'll always have it until you use it." Aquamarine explained. "That's how it works."

"Fair enough." Peter didn't mind having a wish following him around, if it never used it, he might even forget it was there at all.

"I-I-I am sorry about your sister, Peter...actually, I'm sorry about _all_ of them." the mermaid stammered, holding back another cry that was starting up.

"I'm sorry about your friends, too, Aquamarine." Peter told her.

"And I'm sorry about being so...mean...earlier." she blushed, she wasn't used to apologizing for stuff like that, except to Claire and Hailey sometimes, and she felt more than a little awkward saying it.

"I'm sorry if I've been beastly, it's just been a hard day." Peter actually managed the faint outlines of what might have been a smile.

"It's okay."

"Don't worry about anything, Aqua." his smile remained. "Your secret is safe with me."

"You have a secret, too, don't you?" she squinted at him very hard, making him feel rather uncomfortable.

"No."

"Yes you do."

"Then what is it?

She shrugged and moved her tail to the other side of the tub. "How should I know?"

"I don't have a secret." he insisted.

"Fine, whatever." she sighed and looked away.

"Yes you do." The voice in his head whispered. "You just don't want to admit it, high king."

"Shut up." Peter snapped.

"I didn't say anything." the mermaid protested sullenly.

"Not you." Peter blushed apologetically, putting his hand to his forehead. "I've got to get some sleep, I'm starting to hear things."


	7. Sea shells, swords, and idiot suitors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I named the merman Aquamarine almost had to marry "Azure" because he had no name in the movie and didn't even exist in the book.

_England (Peter and Warren's apartment): September 12th, 1949_

_8:30 AM_

Warren was up at the crack of dawn, unable to fall back asleep and Peter-who after putting much effort into falling asleep in the first place had finally managed what can only be described as a complete black out-didn't stir. If it wasn't for his steady breathing, both Warren and Aquamarine (who's tail was of course gone now that the sun was up again) would have thought he was dead.

Aquamarine wheeled herself over to the table for breakfast; her arms were terribly tired by the time the wheelchair reached its destination but she was glad enough of her troubles when she saw-and smelled-the hot bacon and the warm, yellow-yolked eggs on her plate.

"What's this?" the mermaid asked Warren; she had never seen a cooked egg before and knew very little about meat that didn't come from fish. Whatever these things were, they seemed delightful.

"You never had bacon and eggs before?" Warren asked, not unkindly, even forcing a friendly smile though it didn't reach his sad eyes.

"Uh-uh." Aquamarine shook her head. "Never."

"My mum taught me to cook. By the age of seven I realized the more depressed I was, the better I was at the skill." he chuckled mildly.

He must have been weeping the whole time preparing this, then, thought Aquamarine as that almost heavenly smell wafted up to her nose again, ticking the hairs in her nostrils very pleasantly.

"I'm sorry about your girlfriend, Warren." Aquamarine said in a low voice that was just barely above a whisper.

"Did Peter tell you about how his sister and I met?" his eyes turned distant and dream-like as if the very mention of the event took him back in time and brought dear Susan back from death itself so that she was standing right in front of him again.

Aquamarine shook her head no.

"That's fine, he would have probably told it wrong anyway." Warren winked at her and sighed. "He's like that now, you know."

"Who? Peter?" she didn't understand how the two stories coming from Warren's mouth were connected. "Like what?"

"Very letter of the law, very: this is this and that is that." he sighed again, reached to the left side of the table for his glasses, grunted as though he was an old man rather than a youth in his twenties, and put them on. "He didn't used to be...not always."

"What happened?" Aquamarine didn't understand but she suddenly _wanted_ to.

"Life happened, I guess." said Warren, lifting his fork to bring a piece of egg to his lips. "I'm not sure how-or even what exactly-happened to him, but it's changed him. It's like there's a part of Peter that's missing...look, when he wakes up, let's not talk about this anymore...he...he doesn't like to be talked about."

"No one _likes_ to be talked about." Aquamarine retorted, sharply but not cruelly.

"Of course not, it's just that I can't imagine him without the others; especially Edmund, Lucy, and my sweet, my sweet Phyllis."

"Phyllis?"

"Susan-it's a long story." he quietly chewed his bite of egg for a while, lost in memories and deep thoughts.

"I see." she didn't actually 'see' anything but she didn't know what else to say.

* * *

_England (Peter and Warren's apartment): September 12th, 1949_

_9:30 AM_

There was a faint buzzing sound in the living room. After five minutes of it going on unceasingly, Peter was sure it wasn't his imagination. He looked over to Warren's chair to see if his roommate could hear it, too, but he wasn't there-he must have been in the bathroom. As for Aquamarine, she looked as if she was trying very hard to _pretend_ she didn't hear anything, even humming awkwardly to herself to sort of drone the buzzing out.

"Aquamarine," (Peter never bothered using the nickname, 'Aqua' when he was annoyed with her-which was, of course, most of the time). "What is that?"

"Nothing." her pale, pearly-coloured cheeks flushed blue and by this point he knew that meant she was blushing, usually out of the embarrassment of hiding something from himself or Warren.

He folded his arms across his chest. "Aquamarine..."

"Don't you 'Aquamarine' me!" the mermaid snapped, glaring at him as though he'd just called her a female dog as opposed to simply saying her name in a stern voice.

After a moment of stony-hard glares back and forth between the former high king and the mermaid, Aquamarine finally sighed and let her eyes drift over to a decorative sea-shell that Susan had given Warren as a housewarming present a couple of years ago. Peter's eyes widened slightly when he noticed it was lighting up and _ringing_.

"Crabs." Aquamarine muttered under her breath as she pushed herself up with a crutch so she could get out of the wheelchair and over to where the shell was.

"What the..." Peter looked at the shell and then back at Aquamarine.

"The sea found me." she pouted, rolling her eyes and reaching for the shell.

"That's great, you can go home!" Peter tried not to sound as happy about this as he actually felt-though, he was a little surprised that he didn't feel _more_ excited about her leaving than he did.

"No, it's not my father." sighed Aquamarine, looking like she'd just swallowed a gallon of something vulgar-tasting as she put the shell to her ear. "Yes, what do you want?"

Someone on the other end answered; bubbles were heard over his voice in place of static, but it ultimately had the same effect.

"You're _what_?" Aquamarine shouted into the shell. "No, don't I'm begging you!"

Whoever was on the other end was unrelenting.

"No, really, I'm fine...please...come on, no I haven't been kidnapped-well how it my fault you're an idiot?-don't yell at me-well, same to you!-no...don't!" her voice raged from whiny to weepy in a matter of seconds.

When she was done, the mermaid slammed the shell down so hard that it was a wonder it didn't break into a million pieces.

"Dare I ask what that was about?" said Peter, wincing at the one large crack that was now in the centre of the shell he could have sworn had been completely smooth before.

"That," Aquamarine said bitterly, leaning on her crutch, her mouth hanging slightly open like a fish out of water. "was my idiot ex-betrothed; emotions as deep as a tidalpool, brain the size of a small pearl with none of the actual value."

"What did he want?" Peter tried-somewhat in vain-not to laugh at her discomfort. For a fleeting moment, a memory of a very exasperating neighboring princess visiting his castle of Cair Paravel while her father tried to set up a marriage (Peter would have rather eaten dirt) between the two of them, but then it was gone, remembered as no more than a story told to make Lucy laugh.

"Oh, he just thinks you kidnapped me." her voice was cooler now, as if it wasn't herself she was worried for anymore. "No big deal."

Peter nearly choked on his own spit. " _Kidnapped_ you? Why on earth would he think that?"

The mermaid held back a laugh of her own now. "How should I know what goes on inside his head?"

"It's a good thing he's in the ocean." Peter decided, shaking his head at the absurdity of it all. Kidnapped Aquamarine, indeed! Why would anyone _want_ to kidnap someone as difficult to be around as she was anyway? Nothing was worth that kind of torment. Of course, no good deed went unpunished, but still...

"Yeah..." Aquamarine's sea-blue eyes flickered nervously as she sat back down in her wheelchair and picked up her nearby glass of water-this one had salt in it, of course-bringing it to her lips. "...Sure..."

* * *

_England (Peter and Warren's apartment): September 12th, 1949_

_12:30 PM_

Strange as it might sound, the atmosphere in the apartment at the time was almost-peaceful. After the noon-meal, Peter had fallen asleep on the couch with a book about the history of medicine propped on his chest-having dozed off while reading. Rather tired-out herself, Aquamarine had nodded off in her wheelchair. They both had a soft, almost inaudible sort of snore which now that they were in the same room, sleeping at the same time, seemed almost in line with that of the other. The sun hung strangely low for that time of day and the curtains were drawn.

Warren was carrying the dirty dishes over to the sink when he heard a sharp rapping on the door. It was more like the sound of someone aimlessly punching at the wood than an actual knock, but he went to answer it anyway, placing the stacked-up dishes down on the table so as not to break them.

"Hullo?" he said when he opened the door and saw a very bizarre kind of face glaring back at him.

The young man at the door had sea-green eyes, blackish hair that almost seemed to shimmer blue-green in some lights, and pale skin. If he had been a more attractive sort of fellow, Warren might have thought he looked just a little like Aquamarine, but as he was-at least with that whole furious beached whale expression he wore on his face-not at all pleasant to behold, he didn't appear to look very much like anyone in particular.

"Um, hullo." Warren tried again.

"I've come." the young man said, revealing a line of neat, round but somehow also a little sharp and shark-like, pearly-white teeth that seemed much too small for his head, like baby teeth that had never fallen out.

"What?" Warren blinked in confusion.

Without another word, the young man pulled out a partially-rusted sword he'd recently stolen from an old shipwreck (which he clearly had no clue how to use) and proceeded to whack poor, startled, confused Warren on the hips and arms with the flat. It was very much the same way as a normal person might beat a donkey that had misbehaved; only the person doing so probably wouldn't have been wadding around clumsily as if he had never walked before like this strange being was.

If it had been anyone besides Warren, who's total lack of fighting abilities and sensitivity to pain had always made an easy target to particularly stupid and cowardly bullies, they would have smacked the young man and made him drop his sword. As it was, poor Warren was too busy going, "Ow! hey! Now then, stop that, it hurts!" It was hard to fight when the first blow knocked off your glasses, pretty much leaving you to grope around the room blindly. Then again, even if he'd had his glasses on he was the sort of person who could have probably gotten beaten up by Peter's cousin Eustace (back when he was alive) so the situation was quite hopeless either way.

It was his rather pathetic, borderline-girlish yelps that woke up Peter and Aquamarine.

"What in the world...?" Peter muttered, reaching up to rub his eyes, wondering if he was still dreaming.

A piercing cry of, "Help, I'm being beaten!" rang from the other room.

Peter leapt up off the couch and raced into the other room to find the source of the hubbub. Aquamarine tried to go after him in her wheelchair but soon tired of that and chose instead to grab her crutch and limp into the other room that way.

"Aquamarine!" the young man called out when he saw the mermaid panting a few feet away, clinging tightly to the side of her crutch. "I've come to rescue you!"

"Ouch!" cried Warren as he was hit again, flapping his right hand out helplessly. "Do stop! Mercy! At least let a chap grab his glasses so he can see, do be fair!"

"Azure, what are you doing here? I told you I was fine and not to come! For the love of Neptune stop hitting him, will you?" Aquamarine protested, her voice nearly hoarse from how loudly she was screaming.

Not giving it much thought, Peter spun around and grabbed the sword out of Azure's hand, and stood in front of his bruised and breathless roommate, holding out the weapon in front of himself in a way that very much suggested he knew (subconsciously or not) exactly what he was doing.

Unfortunately, Azure was so stupid that he didn't realize that there was an apparently skilled swordsman standing in front of him; he had never read any books or learned anything at all about humans, and as this was his first time on land, it was amazing he even knew to hold the sword by the hilt in the first place. So, he charged at Peter, still keen on 'rescuing' Aquamarine from her 'kidnappers'.

Peter was too quick for the dim-witted merman (for of course, that's what Azure was) and he cleverly aimed a harmless, but sobering slash at his opponent's legs until he gave in and stopped jumping around him moronically as if he intend to swim in the air over his head.

"Where did _that_ come from?" Aquamarine asked Peter, wondering if that was part of his secret-the one he hid from everyone, even, it seemed, himself.

Warren, meanwhile, was crawling around on the floor, patting the wooden boards in search of his glasses, so he had pretty much missed the whole thing, having caught only a faint outline of his roommate snatching a sword from the weird bully who'd just stormed into their apartment and started lashing out for no apparent reason. He finally found his glasses, put them on, and brushed off his knees as he stop up. "Ah, that's better."

Peter didn't have a chance to answer-or even ignore-Aquamarine's question before Azure cried out, "You nasty land-serpent, let my poor betrothed go!" and spat in right in his eye.

"Ex-betrothed!" Aquamarine shrieked in a horrified tone. "I never wanted to marry you in the first place, that's why I ran away and ended up meeting Claire, Hailey, and Raymond, remember?"

"Ew, gross." Peter whispered to himself as he wiped the greenish-coloured merman spit out of his eye.

"Who?" Azure blinked, appearing to be racking his tiny brain for information it just didn't have enough room to store. "Oh those human girls, and that man...the one who didn't love you...yes I remember...funny lot them...funny lot..."

"Look, just go away." Aquamarine told him. "I don't want you and I'm staying here until I'm ready to go home, so there!"

"But-" his voice stammered and faltered pitifully like a bad actor who has just discovered the cue-cards he's reading his lines off of are incorrect. "-but I came to rescue you."

"I don't need to be rescued!" the mermaid huffed, clearly nearing the end of whatever patience she may have started out the conversation with.

"But I came all this way and I even _walked_ with actual legs, see?" Azure held up one of his feet to show her, lost his balance, and almost fell down.

Warren casually crept up behind Azure, stuck out his own foot, and tripped him so that he really _did_ fall, whistling innocently to himself when the merman glared up at him. It cannot be said that either Peter or Aquamarine felt at all bad for Azure.

Aquamarine rolled her eyes; she couldn't believe that just because Azure was rich and had been spoiled rotten from birth, he seriously believed breaking into someone's home and beating them with the flat of a blade was a display of valiance or that it would actually assist in rescuing anyone-even if they _did_ need help!

As for Peter, he was starting to feel bad for Aquamarine who he suddenly realized he thought of almost as a friend compared to the other sea-creature that had just stormed in. Was this what she had to go home to? At least the engagement was called off, but still. The flashbacks started to hit him again and he saw in his mind's eye suitors every bit as stupid as Azure flittering around that Cair Paravel place, not for a mermaid named Aquamarine, but for his own sister, Queen Susan. No, it wasn't real, he was dreaming again. Dreaming while awake...that couldn't be good. Maybe he should go see a doctor.


	8. Fake it

_England (Peter and Warren's apartment): September 12th, 1949_

_1:15 PM_

"So what do you call these round things?" Azure asked with his mouth full, wolfing down another sleeve of the 'round things' he was referring to.

"Cookies." said Warren, wondering how on earth the situation had turned from Azure storming in and beating him with the flat of a blade to Azure sitting across from him at the table, eating him out of house and home.

"They're good, I like them." Azure decided, nodding solemnly to himself as though he had just discovered the date of Armageddon.

"Great..." Warren replied very unenthusiastically, wishing Peter and Aquamarine hadn't left him in charge of their unusual guest while they talked behind the closed doors of the sitting room.

Behind those doors, Aquamarine was pacing back and forth as speedily as her crutch would allow, looking annoyed and flustered.

"Will you stop doing that and stand still for a second?" Peter grumped, getting fed up with her quite quickly, having almost entirely forgotten the notion that they were sort of friends and taken the idea of very nearly blaming her for Azure's appearance in his and Warren's lives. "You're going to drive me mad."

"Azure is here and he wont leave..." Aquamarine muttered to herself, ignoring Peter and continuing to pace anyway. "...there must be some way to get rid of him."

"We could just spin him around very fast a few times until he's really dizzy, shove him in a cab, and then tell the driver to take him as far away as possible." Peter suggested in a begrudging tone, only half-joking, still irritated with Aquamarine's pacing.

"Unfortunately, for some unfathomable reason, my father _likes_ Azure." the mermaid said, though whether she was still speaking only to herself or actually talking to Peter was debatable. "So, we aren't going to get any help getting rid of that idiot from _him_..."

"No to the cab thing, then." Peter said dryly.

"Cab?" Aquamarine spun around and bared her teeth furiously. "I'd rather shove him out a window!"

Peter managed to crack a smile at that. "I'm flexible."

"My father would be livid, though." sighed Aquamarine, tiring out and sitting back down in her wheelchair, much to Peter's relief. "Unless..."

"Unless what?" Peter asked, actually looking at her with a level of interest in whatever plan she was coming up with.

The mermaid shook her head. "No, you've done too much for me already, I couldn't ask you to do this..."

"Do what?" his eyebrows sunk down into a deep, almost-pointed frown.

Aquamarine cheeks flushed a pale sky-blue. "Azure has some notion of rescuing me and re-gaining my hand in marriage or something like that...but if there was a rival suitor..."

The meaning of what she was saying slowly dawned on Peter, but he preferred to play dumb rather than admit it. "Yes, I think you and Warren will make a lovely couple."

"No," Aquamarine's blush darkened a few shades to sapphire, seeing right through his fake stupidity. "not him..."

"How do I get myself into these messes?" he reached up and rubbed his forehead.

"Besides," Aquamarine continued pointedly. "would you really want to see the man who was in love with your sister going around with someone else, even if it was pretend?"

He had to admit it did make him feel a tad uncomfortable; strangely enough, more so even than the idea of pretending he himself was interested in Aquamarine did.

"Let me get something straight first;" Peter mused over the situation, still not even completely sure how he'd gotten himself into that mess in the first place. "I pretend to be interested in you in front of Azure and he goes away? Just like that? Then you stay until you're better and then _you_ go away?"

A little relieved by his reaction, Aquamarine gave him a sort of half-smile and nodded. "Azure's a coward and it's not like he's in love with me or anything. We don't have love down there and he has far too many bubbles in his brain to think it exists anywhere else."

Peter was a little confused at that. "If he doesn't love you, why does he want you?"

Aquamarine laughed, really laughed, a deep, rather pretty-sounding water-melody of a laugh that seemed to echo off of the walls as if it was a water-fall sliding down them. "He is too stupid to look for anyone else to marry on his own. He's been going around with this puzzled look on his face ever since the wedding was called off."

"I see." said Peter, secretly admiring her pretty-sounding genuine laugh though he wouldn't have admitted it even under out-right torture.

"But as long as Raymond was alive, Azure has mostly stayed away, he doesn't actually want to fight anyone to get my hand in marriage-he doesn't want me that badly."

"Considering how he burst in here and started hitting Warren with a blade, I find that a little hard to believe."

"You would be surprised." she told him, shaking her head again and widening her smile just a little bit. "Trust me."

"Fine then." he said, giving in and agreeing to go along with her plan until Azure was gone. "So what do I say to him?"

Aquamarine though it over. If Azure was even the least bit sentimental, she would have come up with something a little flowery and deep for Peter to say, to make it seem more realistic and love-like; she had always been the romantic one in her family. As it was, however, any effort in coming up with such a speech would be useless, going completely over the idiot merman's head. So she realized she had to come up with something simple and point-blank. Something that would clearly be as much of a lie as the former, just much more boring.

After Peter had-quite easily-committed to memory what Aquamarine told him to say to her ex-betrothed and even managed to sound quite believable, he had one more question before they put their plan into action. "What is your father going to say when he finds out?"

A smug look came up onto the mermaids face. "I'm not marrying anyone, certainly not _you_ , Azure was simply misinformed."

Couldn't she say 'you' with a _little_ less disgust? Peter thought to himself-but said nothing about it out loud, not wanting her to think he actually cared what she thought of him.

Moments later they re-entered the room where Azure was now munching on a box of crackers he had swiped from one of their cabinets while Warren, ever patient, tapped his foot anxiously on the floor.

Thanks goodness, he thought the second he saw Peter and Aquamarine coming towards him-thinking they were going to take Azure away at last.

"Azure, I must say you have greatly offended my household." Peter said, glancing at Aquamarine and giving her what-Warren thought-looked like a sort of wink. For a moment it looked like Peter was trying not to laugh, but he got a hold of himself and went on. "I intended to make Aquamarine my wife; preparations were almost completed and you have come without even an invitation."

Warren's jaw dropped and he almost fell out of his chair from pure shock. "Seriously?"

"Yes, we've been planning this for a while if you k _no_ w what I mean." Peter raised his eyebrows at Warren pointedly until he got the hint that this was all for show.

"Oh, right!" Warren nodded vigorously, only wanting to help. "The wedding, of course...because you were um...going to marry...Aquamarine..."

He was a bad actor and he squinted far too often to appear even a little believable (this was how his mother used to be able to always tell when he was trying to lie to her) but Azure wasn't paying any attention to him, he was too busy blinking at Peter in a very uncomprehending fashion.

"You and Aquamarine?" the merman replied dumbly, folding his arms across his chest. "Really?"

"Maybe you would like to challenge my new betrothed to a duel." Aquamarine suggested with a phony smile planted across her face as if she was straining to hold back more of her watery laughter.

"A duel?" Peter spun around and looked at her in disbelief. She hadn't said anything about a duel-real or fake-he was only supposed to claim he wanted to marry her and this annoying merman was supposed to vacate his apartment! "Aquamarine!"

She wiggled her eyebrows at him, trying to hint that he was supposed to talk to her in a more pleasant tone in front of Azure.

"Aquamarine," he couldn't help speaking through his teeth out of frustration. "he doesn't want to duel."

"Sure I do." Azure decided, oddly enough sort of warming up to the idea.

" _What_?" Peter and Aquamarine blurted out at the same time.

"You weren't supposed to say yes!" Aquamarine couldn't help exclaiming before catching herself and adding, "You...you don't know how to duel with a human...it's very different..."

"Different!" snorted Azure, tossing back his head proudly. "Anything this human can do, I can do better."

Peter found that extremely hard to believe. This merman could barely hold a sword, never mind fight anyone. He'd have never made it on a raid against an army of giants at the northern borders. Memories again started coming back to the high king's mind; they came in such a hurry that he didn't have a chance to block them like he always did-or at least tried to. With surprising clarity he saw the giants and himself fighting, almost as if through someone else's eyes, like he was watching it all happen. How distinctly he could hear his thoughts from back then, too. Susan and Edmund had been away in Calormen because Susan was courting that awful Prince Rabadash.

No, stop it! He told his mind sharply, please stop...it's not real, it's like a dream or a story or something. There are no giants, there was never any such person as a Prince Rabadash, he and his siblings were never royalty, and he, too, just like Azure, probably didn't know the first thing about dueling. How quickly Peter willed himself to forget the skill he had unintentionally shown earlier when he'd disarmed the merman. What skill was it really though to unarm someone who was as clumsy as Azure? No skill, certainly not that of a king. Not royal training, not instinct, just a fluke or a likelihood or something.

"Excuse us for just a moment, will you?" said Peter in a surprisingly gracious-almost kingly-tone as he grabbed onto the side of Aquamarine's shoulder, nudged her over to a corner of the room, and whispered, "Have you lost your marbles? I'm not going to duel with Azure in the middle of my own kitchen!"

Of course not, Aquamarine thought jokingly to herself-though she didn't dare say it out loud when Peter looked this angry, there's more room in the park.

"Aquamarine!" Peter snapped bitterly. "This is not the deal we came up with!"

"Look, you wont have to duel with him." Aquamarine promised, appearing-much to Peter's annoyance-to be struggling to hold back yet another laugh. "I'll talk him out of it."

"You'd better!" his voice was higher-pitched now.

"Shh...keep it down, you'll give it away." she cautioned him.

"I'll tell him everything!" Peter threatened, frowning angrily at her. "I'll tell him that we're only pretending to be engaged so he'll leave you alone, I swear by the Lion, I'll do it!"

Aquamarine only blinked in confusion. "The _Lion_? What Lion?"

"It's an expression." he brushed it off, not willing to get into the details of it-they made him feel uncomfortable.

"He wont fight you, alright?" the mermaid huffed, rolling her eyes. Men! It was one little fake duel that wasn't even really going to happen! Why did he have to get so worked up? Maybe if Aquamarine had ever actually been in a real duel herself, or else had seen someone she truly cared about in one, she might have understood, but because she never had, she didn't.

"What if I use my wish to make him go away?" offered Peter, thinking that he might have finally come up with a reasonable solution.

"You can't," Aquamarine explained. "a wish given to a human by a member of the merfolk can't be used against other merpeople; other humans, sure."

"Oh, that's fair..." Peter growled sarcastically.

The mermaid shrugged her shoulders. "Don't look at me, I didn't make up the rules."

"Go talk Azure out of it, then." he folded his arms across his chest and tightened his glare into a very no-nonsense expression.

Sighing deeply-and even whimpering slightly-Aquamarine, slowly tugging herself along with the crutch, went over to Azure and whispered something in his ear. The merman murmured something that sounded like, "Huh?" about six times before whatever she was saying finally got through to him; then he proceeded to shake his head no. She whispered something else and pouted sullenly. Rolling his eyes, Azure appeared to be weakening in his resolve (at least, Peter certainly hoped he was, though it might have been wishful thinking).

Warren was actually standing close enough to hear what they were saying, but he couldn't understand a word of it as they didn't seem to be speaking English. Merpeople speak all languages, but they also have their own, which was what Aquamarine and Azure were speaking in at that moment.

Finally Azure nodded and Aquamarine pouted again, still appearing quite displeased in spite of being a little patronized so to speak. Sort of timidly, she limped back over to Peter's side and whispered, "Good news and bad news."

Peter didn't say anything, he flinched slightly and waited for her to go on.

"The good news is there's no duel, like I promised, I talked him out of it."

That sounded good; what could the bad news possibly be? "And the bad news?"

"Well..." Aquamarine's complexion turned a chalky shade of foamy-green.

Almost involuntarily, Peter raised an eyebrow.

"...he's not leaving."

"Why not?" he had to struggle to keep himself from shouting.

"He insists on staying behind as our..." the mermaid looked like she was going to be sick. "Ugh!" she tried again to finish her sentence. "...chaperone."

Frustrated beyond all reason, Peter slapped his forehead and moaned inwardly.


	9. The funeral and the unexpected observer

_England (Memorial Grounds Graveyard): September 14th, 1949._

_11:48 AM_

It was the very strangest sort of funeral that is in existence; the kind where, though a great deal of deaths surely occurred, there are only a couple of bodies to be buried. There were only two caskets in sight, they were gleaming chestnut-coloured with shimmering brass poles for them to be lowered into the ground by. The lining in one was a golden sun-like yellow while the other was such a dark, serene shade of red, deeper even than crimson. For some reason, the colouring struck Peter as rather pathetic and gave him an ache in the pit of his stomach; though he never could explain, to himself, either, exactly why he felt that way. In these caskets were laid the bodies of Peter's brother, Edmund, and his sister, Susan.

Aquamarine wished her legs hurt more so that she could focus on the physical pain rather than let her mind think about the two bodies that had once been alive. They had once been real, living, breathing humans, just like Peter. The sister, now she certainly was every bit as beautiful as Warren had claimed, even with the scars from the heat of the crash, the ones Aquamarine could not bear to even glance at for a full half-second. The brother was really something, too. When she looked down at his cold, dead face, she thought she saw an expression she'd been searching for. It gave the mermaid quite a shock when she realized that the face she had been looking for it in without knowing it, was Peter's. Somehow, she knew he was supposed to have that kind of other-worldly aura around him; just like his brother.

She turned her head to look at Peter and saw that it wasn't there. Perhaps that was what Warren had meant when he said there was a part of Peter that was missing. Where had he lost it? Had his siblings carried it for him, hoping to give it back in some way when the time was right, and then...now this...she shuddered, all these whirling thoughts were giving her a rather beastly headache.

The fact that she knew Azure was hovering in the near-by trees, glowering at them with what-he (and only he) thought to be-a concerned, grown-up expression, certainly didn't make her throbbing head feel any better.

They had tried to get rid of him by saying that Warren would be a good chaperon. Only too bad for them, because Warren had chosen that exact moment to get himself locked in a closet, unable to force the door open until Peter pulled on it from the other side. Long story short, Azure was still with them, completely unmoved. Neither Peter nor Aquamarine had any idea what they were going to do when it came to revealing the fact that they weren't actually going to get married, that they didn't even _like_ each other (not that _that_ mattered in the merworld, but still).

A most-likely religious man of some sort, wearing a handsomely sewn suit and a neatly pressed thin-looking tie, was giving the goodbye-to-the-dead-loved-one speech. He was holding his bible open, but it didn't actually look like he was reading from it seeing as little, if any, of his speech was really about god; it was barely even about Edmund or Susan or anyone else who had died in the railway accident. A great deal of it seemed to be about disasters and dealing with life-though none of it was at all comforting-and moving on and something really boring about 'one's place in society'.

Peter couldn't help wincing just a little when his mind returned from wandering and caught a word or two here and there; was this pointless prattle supposed to mean anything? Weren't talks given at funerals meant to remember the person (or people, depending on the circumstances) who had died? Why was there nothing in the endless drone about Susan when she was a lovely little baby being placed-much to her elder brother's (he was barely two years old at the time) surprise-on a blanket beside him while a crow-faced Aunt Alberta frowned over them, clinking her tongue, wondering what babies were good for anyway? Why were there no details about things that Edmund had liked-such as Turkish Delight and the colour green? Wasn't there going to be even a single phrase about little Lucy or his parents? Nothing, of course there wasn't. They were gone; there was no point in him living in the past, and there was even less point in anyone else unconnected to the pain doing so.

It took a while, but finally the man with the bible actually said something that sounded-however final and lonely-just about right for a funeral. Some little line about ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Then he nodded at Peter. It was time for him to come up and close the coffins. As the only surviving relative, it was his right, honour, even.

Aquamarine lowered the black veil she was wearing, pulling it over her eyes and bunching it up as much as possible; she didn't want to see Peter break down when he saw his siblings faces. Surely he would, anyone would. There really was no point in bunching up the veil after all, for she found quite quickly that though it made things darker, she could still see pretty well everything that was happening around her.

As his hand settled on the top of Edmund's casket, Peter refused to let himself look down at his younger brother's face. He wouldn't do it; he would just close it quickly and move forward. It wasn't heartlessness, it wasn't lack of longing for a moment to say goodbye, it was just knowing that death was the end-and it wasn't like the end of a book where you could just flip back a few pages and start over if you felt you needed a second chance, it was just done. All the pages before it burning in a fire that could not be put out. Peter couldn't let himself gaze into that fire; perhaps it would burn down the carefully constructed wall of restraint and numbness he had build around himself. He couldn't let that happen. So he just closed it. One smooth click and it was done.

Watching him, Aquamarine was shaking her head. What was wrong with him? What was he trying to hide from? What was he really holding back? This wasn't Peter, this was only his contour, a mere shadow-copy of the real Peter; whoever he really was.

Before he came to Susan's casket, Peter caught a glimpse of a thin young woman with her long hair tied back and braided with a ribbon that looked almost black but was apparently dark-blue because of its contrast to the real black of her dress. He was surprised she had come. Her name was Wilma and he hadn't seen her in almost two years. No real lost, not for him anyway, it was Edmund who had suffered that blow. Wilma had been Edmund's girlfriend a while back and he had eventually done the unthinkable: he told her about Narnia. She never looked at him the same way after that. Obviously, she thought he was insane, it had never occurred to her to believe he was telling the truth; she'd left. Where she went, no one had been sure. Edmund never asked after her, saying he didn't want anyone who couldn't accept him for who he really was.

 _Now_ she comes back, Peter thought almost bitterly-nearly forgetting about the job at hand-feeling hurt for his brother even though he himself didn't believe in Narnia anymore, now that he's gone, she comes back.

Wilma had been crying, that much was for sure. She wasn't blubbing now, she wasn't making a big show of grief. Those sort of overt gestures had never been to her liking; she had always hated when others threw their hands in the air and wept for people they barely knew just to get attention. And in a way, she barely knew Ed. Her tears had been shed quietly behind closed doors when she'd read the paper the names of the deceased had been listed in.

Distracted by Wilma's very much unexpected presence, Peter forgot to take the final steps towards Susan's casket until the man with the bible coughed out a light, "Ahem."

"Oh, sorry." murmured Peter, as he took the steps, nearly tripping over a single stray pebble hidden in the grass (small, neat, and trim though it was) and falling flat on his face.

To steady himself, he had to cling to the edges of his sister's casket. By mistake, he looked inside. He unwittingly let himself see his sister's dead face. Pain stirred; a break down, a storm, anger and loss and fear, how it all bubbled and flew about as if it would burst!

This is it, Aquamarine thought to herself when she realized what had just happened, he's finally going to have his melt down, the one he's been fighting so hard; Peter Pevensie is going to weep for his siblings.

The awaited tears never pricked his dry eyes; his lower lip only quivered slightly before he steadied it and hardened his face, recoiling it as tightly as it would go.

Aquamarine bit her tongue to stop from calling out, "What? That's it? That's all you've been holding back? Bull shark! Cry, darn it, cry!" She wasn't sure why she wanted to scream at him so badly; it really was no business of hers whether or not Peter cried. Still, she wanted to see him lose it, to flip out and wail, just once. He wasn't the calm, borderline heartless person he seemed to be masquerading as, there _was_ something else behind all this that bothering him.

"Susan only wanted to help you, Peter." a nagging voice inside Peter's head lectured. "She was right and you know it. You should have listened, you should have gone. Now it's too late. You failed them. You failed all of them! You failed Lucy. Your little Lucy."

Peter didn't believe that voice; he called it bluff and slowly reached to close the casket. Warren's hand landed on his shoulder and he hesitated for a moment, letting his roommate see the love of his life one last time before she was lowered into the ground for ever.

"Goodbye, Susan." Warren whispered so softly that not even Peter heard him.

All the same, he knew the time had come, and he finally clicked it closed. As for himself, he didn't say goodbye to his sister-he was too ashamed.

Some flowers were gently tossed onto the closed lids before they were lowered; Peter noticed the ones from Wilma's hands were small white roses and that her toss was shaky and weak, all but missing its final mark.

It was soon over and everyone was heading back to the parking lot to meet up with their own cars or else someone who could give them a ride.

Before Peter could finish taking out his own keys, Wilma called after him. "Peter!"

He tried to ignore her at first but Aquamarine tapped his shoulder and said, "I think she's calling you."

Thanks a lot, Peter thought-shooting her the stink eye as he stood mere inches away from the car door.

It took a moment (Wilma had never been a particularly fast-paced person with the exception of right after Edmund told her about Narnia; she'd turned into a nearly Olympic level runner then) but she finally caught up to him, a little breathless and tired, straightening out her long black sleeves.

"Hello, Wilma." Peter sighed, willing himself not to roll his eyes at her. He really wasn't sure why he disliked her so much, nor was he at all certain she actually deserved his hatred, but it was still there.

"Hi," her small was faint, but it was also genuine, sweet even. "I wasn't sure if you remembered me."

Peter shrugged apathetically. "You used to be around a lot."

She shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot as if trying to shake an imaginary pebble out of one of her shoes. Looking down, she mumbled, "Yeah, I know..."

"I've got to go." this was too awkward, Peter decided, turning back to the car door again. It was way too much like going back in time and he couldn't take that, not now.

Gripping the side of her purse, Wilma didn't turn to go away just yet. "He was telling the truth, wasn't he?"

"What?" he looked at her with his forehead crinkled.

"Edmund." she spoke the name softly and timidly as if she was afraid she didn't have a right to say it, like it was a holy word or something.

"What about him?"

"I called him insane," said Wilma as she took a step forward. "but he wasn't, was he?"

"I don't know what you mean." Peter lied, acting as though he was suddenly fascinated with the back of his own hand and the jingle of the car keys.

She lowered her voice even more, moving a lock of hair that had fallen away from its braid out of her eyes. "Narnia."

"I don't know." Peter said curtly, turning around and refusing to glance back at her as he got into the car.

Aquamarine was in the passenger seat (Azure and Warren were in the back). "Who was that?"

"No one." said Peter, staring out at the road and clutching the wheel like he was holding into it for dear life.

"She seemed sad," Aquamarine noted. "Lonely, too."

"Mmm." was Peter's absent response.

"What was she talking about with you out there?"

"Nothing."

"She seemed-"

"If you don't stop talking, I'm going to pull this car over." Peter threatened.

"I don't care." said Aquamarine.

And she didn't; she was just as stubborn as he was. Peter had to have realized by then, if he was ever going to, that he was unlikely to win an argument with her. He'd met his match.

Azure's stomach growled. "I'm hungry." he whined.

"Shut up!" Peter snapped so harshly that even Warren was a little taken back.

"I'm sorry." Peter whispered as he made a gentle left turn onto another road, but it was doubtful that he was speaking to anyone in the car with him.


	10. Things not remembered

_England (Peter and Warren's apartment, the bathroom): September 14th_

_11:48 PM_

Aquamarine was simply exhausted, but as she rested in the lukewarm water-filled tub, her quickly healing tail hanging over it-looking much stronger and far more elegant than it had only a few days before-she found she couldn't fall asleep.

Her ears seemed to pick up every little sound that came her way. A dog barking outside, a stray cat knocking over a garbage can in an alleyway not far from the window, Warren crying himself to sleep, Peter's snoring (she had listened and waited for it, but even now, he had not wept), and the cars on the street below. She couldn't hear Azure, though, and she was glad of it. At night, the merman slept in one of the neighbors' pools. It was a terribly foolhardy thing for a creature that most humans think of as mythical to do, but he was surprisingly careful and the owners didn't use their pool at this time of year anyway; the air was too chilly. In all honesty, Aquamarine didn't see the good in a chaperon who went away at night but haunted a couple during the daylight hours. Sure, he couldn't help it because of his tail forming, but really what _was_ the point? What use was a chaperon who let them be alone together all night? Of course, they weren't really together (what with the separate rooms and all that), and Aquamarine had her tail.

Maybe that's it, the mermaid thought-simply because she had nothing better to do, he probably thinks we wouldn't be able to do anything because I have a tail until the sun comes up. Huh, how about that? Perhaps Azure's a little smarter than I give him credit for.

The last part of her thought was so preposterous that she laughed wildly to herself. After all, _she_ was probably giving the situation more thought than Azure had! And she didn't even like Peter in that way-or at all, really.

All of a sudden, the night seemed to grow gloomier, quieter. The dog stopped barking, the cat calmed down, and the number of cars on the street lessened. Aquamarine's mind turned to the funeral that morning: Peter's stony expression and the faces of his dead siblings in their caskets. Those nearly-regal, dead faces were bewitching somehow, they clung to her mind. Leaning up in the tub, arching her back so she could look out the half-open window shutters, Aquamarine wished she had gotten a chance to meet them when they were alive.

A few tears slid down her face, illuminated by the sliver of moonlight falling in from behind the shutters. She wasn't crying for his siblings now; she was thinking about Hailey and Claire. They'd died, too, but there was no memorial for them yet because their bodies hadn't been found, just like Peter's Lucy.

No matter what happens, I'll still remember them, thought Aquamarine, that's what Peter has to realize, I think, that's it's okay to remember.

* * *

_England (the Pevensies' old house): September 16th, 1949_

_1:45 PM_

Once, not so very long ago, this house had been home to four little children who'd had a liking for racing one another up and down the stairs until their father shouted for the love of all that was holy for them to 'please stop that racket'. There had been giggles and secrets and hidden sweets in-between mattresses. The two girls had braided each other's hair and the boys had traded marbles. School terms meant they had to leave, but during the holidays, the good old times came back. They'd lived through the first bombing in that house together, those children, until they were sent away into the country for a little while.

As Peter opened the front door now, it creaked. Funny how he didn't remember it ever creaking even once during his childhood-not one single time in eighteen years-and it creaked now. Outside, the sky was mostly blue in spite of a mild over-cast but inside of the house all of the light that reached through the drawn curtains was an ashy shade of gray.

There was nothing destroyed or smashed, no shattered windows or anything of the sort, but, to Peter, as he stood in the entryway and looked around in a sort of dazed wonder, the house _felt_ broken.

"Peter, I think it's starting to drizzle out here." a voice behind him said.

In the sleepy, hollowness of the place that had once been home, Peter had nearly forgotten that he hadn't come alone; Warren, Aquamarine, and-yes, sadly-Azure, were right behind him, waiting to be let in.

He didn't mind Warren there and he could almost put up with Aquamarine's presence even if it felt a little out of place, but Azure coming along really irked him. The whole ride over, Peter kept thinking about how rude it was for the stupid merman to want to tag along to a place that didn't concern him in the least. Standing in the doorway now, however, he realized this house didn't really concern much of anyone anymore. Not anyone he knew or had ever known, anyway.

A lot of the furniture was already gone: the couch in the living room, the stool by the coat hooks, the coffee table where he, Edmund, and Susan used to like to play chess (Lucy preferred to use the pieces like little dolls and make up stories about them, rather than bother to learn the actual game), and Mrs. Pevensie's favorite rocking chair were all no where to be seen. Peter had arranged for those to be sold already and the collectors had come mere hours before to take them. There were more debts on his hands now than Peter had expected; it wasn't too bad seeing as Mr. and Mrs. Pevensie had been pretty careful with whatever expenses they'd run up, and whatever money they stored in the local bank, but it was enough that some things needed to go. The house itself would be sold as soon as someone made a reasonable offer; and Peter was there to see if there was anything important he needed to take with him back to the apartment.

This didn't feel quite as sad as that other place did when he saw it in ruins. That castle called Cair Paravel. No, it wasn't real. There was no castle, there were no ruins of it, either. No Lions, no Telmarines, just a sad chapter in a pretty story.

Azure whistled an annoyingly high-pitched tune to himself that had the effect of making everyone, except for Aquamarine, feel sea-sick. Peter threatened to gag him if he didn't stop it and made him sit down by the old window-seat until it was time to leave.

"How come Aquamarine doesn't have to sit here, too?" Azure protested sullenly, his face puckered and sour-looking like he'd just swallowed a lemon wedge.

"Because I say she doesn't." Peter huffed, in no mood to argue or explain himself to the merman who, for all the trouble he was causing them, wasn't even that good at being a chaperon. Sure, he followed them everywhere and glowered a lot, but as a whole, he did a pretty pathetic job at it. If he and Aquamarine had actually _wanted_ to fool around, they probably could have by now without him even realizing it. Azure was the most easily-distracted person Peter had ever met. He knew two years olds with a longer attention span!

"Fine." he pouted, holding his own right hand, cradling it like it was an injured baby bird.

"Stay." Warren told him pointedly as if he was a dog with a habit of disobedience.

Walking up the stairs, to his siblings' bedrooms felt funny, like he wasn't really there, as if he was only traveling the house the same way he could travel any familiar place in his mind when he couldn't fall asleep right away at night. And yet, it didn't even really feel all that familiar anymore. Maybe he'd forgotten about that, too. Maybe one day he, Peter Pevensie, would be a memory-less nobody. Or maybe he already was.

The first bedroom was the one that he used to share with Edmund before he grew up and went away to a university, giving the room up completely to his younger brother. Aside from the fact that it had evidently been cleaned and tidied up a little less often since he had last been there (Peter was more a neat-freak than Edmund) nothing much had changed. Not even the fact that there were two beds (none of the beds had gotten sold yet and he was strongly considering just leaving them all for whomever decided to buy the house) as if Edmund hadn't given much thought to taking over his new turf. He didn't even seem to have used Peter's side of the room much; a layer of dust was on the dresser there, as if the half was completely untouched. There was a picture hanging up on the side that had formerly belonged to Peter, a little drawing of a flower garden Susan had done when she was four. He used to like that drawing quite a bit, but it occurred to him that he didn't care for it at all now. Unable to bring himself to take it, much less to peel it off the wall and throw it in the dustbin, he just left it there and went on to Lucy's room, wanting nothing from this part of his past, either.

Lucy's bedroom was different from the other rooms in the house Peter had been walking through; the curtains were lighter here, letting in yellow light as the sun rose a little higher. The comforter on the bed was embroidered with blue jays and a few sloppy silver-white stitches which had been Lucy's failed attempts to add clouds into the picture until she realized how difficult and boring it was. The bookshelves were over filled with various titles which Peter would not look at; he'd have to sell them, of course he would. Either that or just leave them with the house.

Slowly, as if expecting something to jump out at him and pull him in, Peter opened the closet door and slid aside the clothing hanging there. No point in saving those either. On a little white shelf behind them were two medium-sized objects made of wood. The first was an old doll house he and Mr. Pevensie had once tried to make for Lucy. It was a really bad-looking piece of junk but Lucy refused to let them toss it and buy her a 'real' one; she called it beautiful and played with it all the time until she got too old for dolls and such things and had carefully tucked it away back here.

The wood was rough and it was a wonder the poor child hadn't gotten a sea's worth of splinters playing with it. Then, Peter remembered her coming to him quite a few times with splinters as a child, usually stuck in her fingers. He didn't often ask how it had happened, much more concerned with getting it out and comforting her afterwards, now he figured it out. The ones in her knees might have been from tree climbing but the finger ones...definitely the doll house. He had helped build it, her pain was sort of his fault then, wasn't it? Of course it was, everything was his fault now. It only fit that this would be, too. The doll house would have to be pitched now, like it should have been years ago, but he couldn't bring himself to touch it.

Sighing, Peter looked at the other object. A wooden box, smooth and well crafted with an L engraved on the top of it. It had been brought from an old shop a few years ago, he wasn't sure what Lucy kept in there, but he decided to take it with him anyway, for all he knew, it might be the only thing worth rescuing.

Meanwhile, it was Susan's old bedroom that Aquamarine had wandered into. A confusing place that had withstood one too many phases over its past resident's lifetime. The carpet smelled faintly of perfume that could not be washed out and the dresser had a couple of old make-up stains on it. In one draw, the mermaid found several empty lipstick tubes and a few torn-up nylons. These objects didn't seem to reflect the person who had lived there most recently, however. Nor did the silver mirror which she somehow knew had been looked into far too often, tell her much about the young woman who had died.

A head appeared in the doorway and Aquamarine jumped a little, relieved to see it was only Warren standing there as if he was glued to the spot.

"She had a nice room." Aquamarine commented rather pathetically.

Warren didn't call her on it. "Yeah, I guess..."

"You know you don't have to stand in the doorway like a guard on duty." Aquamarine pointed out, trying not to laugh (failing somewhat at this endeavor, somber as the situation was).

Warren chuckled mildly. "I'm not used to seeing the room from any other angle."

"You've never been in here?" the mermaid asked.

"Are you kidding?" he shook his head and blinked at her awkwardly. "If I had ever been in this room with her, Edmund would have killed me and Peter would have brought me back to clean up the mess."

"Protective brothers," Aquamarine noted, looking around as if uncertain what she ought to let herself focus on.

"Do you have brothers?"

The mermaid smiled. "Sisters."

"I see."

"They're pretty protective themselves though."

"Do you miss them?" Warren asked.

"I don't really think about that, I guess." said Aquamarine, wondering exactly whether or not she _did_ miss them. "It's complicated."

"I'm going to go downstairs." Warren told her, unable to bring himself to step all the way into his girlfriend's room, even now that she was gone. "Someone's got to make sure Azure isn't up to anything insane."

"He's probably done something stupid by now," Aquamarine had to agree. "it's been ten minutes, if he hasn't acted up, it would be a new record for him."

After Warren was out of sight, Aquamarine's eyes landed on a slip of paper sticking out from under a rug were it had either been hidden, or else dropped and forgotten. Curiously, she picked it up. As she read it, her eyes widened. It couldn't be true, could it? But it was! One thing was for sure, she would never be able to look at Peter the same way again. Because now, not only did he know what she really was, _she_ knew what _he_ really was, too.


	11. The letter, the Lion, and the cliff

_England (the Pevensies' old house; Lucy's room): September 16th, 1949_

_2:05 PM_

As Peter stood in the room for a moment longer with the wooden box tucked carefully under his arm as though it contained precious and very breakable glass (for all he knew, it actually might), taking in a last glimpse of the one room in the house that still, somehow withstanding time and unforeseen occurrences, felt like part of home, he breathed deeply, forgetting the world around him if only for a moment. Memories, pure and safe ones-ones he didn't have to hide from-rested in his mind as gently as a little white dove lands on a tree branch.

Little Lucy-only seven years old-was sitting cross-legged on the bed, brushing her favorite doll's hair and murmuring the words and a light trace of the tune to a little playground song some other little children at the local park had been singing earlier that afternoon. She looked up at Peter and smiled so sweetly, as if he was her favorite person in the whole world and she was glad he was standing there, watching over her.

Peter blinked; ten years passed in that one blink and Lucy was seventeen, older with a different sort of prettiness than she'd used to have about her, still cross-legged, a thick adventure novel in place of the doll. She looked up at him again and she started to smile, the corners of her mouth turned up, but then she seemed to see something she didn't like, she seemed to see someone who wasn't really her brother at all, someone she was beginning to have a hard time forcing herself to love still.

Then she was gone; it all came back to Peter that he had only been seeing his own thoughts and she wasn't really there after all. He'd never see her smile at him again. It was time to leave the room behind now; the room and all the weighty loss and broken dreams it carried with it.

Every year, he thought to himself, every single year that passes, each time her birthday comes around, I'll wonder what she would have been like, if she would have gone to a university, gotten married, had children? Would Susan have? She and Warren might have if their time together hadn't been cut short by the speeding training flying off of its tracks. What about Ed, then? Would he have by some off-chance made it pax with Wilma eventually if his life hadn't ended? Did he love her? _Would_ he have loved her? In time? What if he-Peter-had gone with them like Susan had wanted? Would he have died, too? Or would he have lived like Aquamarine? If he could choose, what would he have really wanted?

Peter didn't know the answer to any of those questions; and he had a thousand more both similar and dissimilar to them.

Aquamarine appeared in the doorway just as he was leaving; she looked rather flustered and her eyes had that stormy shade about them again-the one that made him feel uncomfortable, like a wave was going to break out of them and wash him away.

Clinging to the wooden box a little tighter, he tried to walk around her, but she blocked his way. "You _do_ have a secret."

Peter willed himself not to squirm but it took a lot more than he would have expected to do so. "I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about."

"I don't believe we've been properly introduced, your Majesty." her tone was confusing; somewhere between cold-even a little bitter-and respectful, as if she had just realized exactly who she was addressing.

"What?" said Peter, stopping his attempts to get around her and standing still, completely stunned.

"I know what you are, Peter Pevensie." Aquamarine told him flat out. "Although, you do make a rather good show of hiding it, what with being-well then, I can't say it, it wouldn't be respectful to speak to a king in such a way. But if you weren't, then I'd say exactly what I thought of you."

How could someone be so insulting, speak in such a tone of contempt, harbor their own private storm, and yet, seem strangely submissive all of a sudden as well? It didn't make sense. Still, he could tell one thing for sure, whatever else she was doing, she wasn't making fun of him.

The mermaid went on, "And, _Sire_ , trust me, it wouldn't be anything _nice_." with this, she turned to leave, but Peter grabbed onto her wrist and held her back. That was when he noticed the slightly-crumpled note still resting in her hand.

Though he didn't see a single word on it, some way or another, Peter knew what it was long before he snatched it away and read it to himself. He didn't need to read it to know its contents. After all, he was the one who had written it. It had been a letter to Susan, back when she had slipped away from being 'a friend of Narnia'. He'd written her that letter in hopes of calling her back to them. Now the letter seemed silly to his grown-up, medical student personality; like something he had written as a small child that did not truly apply to anything or anyone, certainly not to himself. But all the information-the past he was running from-was there. Embedded deeply on the yellowish-white paper with dark-coloured ink, was his real identity: High King Peter the magnificent. His siblings' titles came before it, Susan's first and foremost, for it was her he had meant to address, lined in the middle of the note. Even the sight of his own, old style slanted handwriting gave him chills and an ache in his stomach.

For a second as meaningfully pointed (yet, also just as quick and fading) as a strike of bright blue lighting bursting from a rainy sky above and hitting the ground below, it was all true. King Edmund the just, Queen Susan The gentle, and Queen Lucy the valiant, were real-not merely fictionalized versions of his beloved siblings.

"It never happened." murmured Peter, allowing-more like forcing, actually-himself to forget again.

"What never happened?" Aquamarine asked, taking a step forward.

"I'm not a king, there is no Narnia." he told her somberly, crinkling the note in his hand, trying to convince himself that it was all right to crumble it up and throw it in the dustbin on the way out.

"The letter..." protested Aquamarine, looking more cross than puzzled now.

"It means nothing." Peter tightened his fist until the letter was nothing but a useless paper ball.

She didn't believe that; what school-boy, human or merfolk, would have been able to write with that? It didn't matter that Peter was clever, plenty others like him were likely just as intelligent. It was something different that had enabled him to write a letter like that to his-at the time-wayward sister, something beyond this world. There was a Narnia and he was a king, a high king. Aquamarine was as sure of it as she was of the fact that her tail would be back after sunset. This was the part of Peter that was missing. Warren knew about it but he didn't even know what it really was. How could he have even guessed it was anything like this?

"Peter," she tried, not bothering to call him, 'your majesty' now. "why did you let it go?'

"Let what go?" he nearly-snarled in a much more nasty tone than he intended.

"You were a king... _are_ a king, still, I think..."

"Look," his jaw line tightened and he pointed his finger at her angrily. "I got enough of this from my siblings when they were alive and I don't need it from you!"

"Why are you yelling at me?" Aquamarine asked in an almost timid tone, taken aback.

"Because I'm through with all of this!" Peter snapped, roughly-but not brutally so-making his way passed her, out into the hallway.

"With what?" Aquamarine's own voice got louder now. "With things you claim aren't even real?"

"I did what I had to."

"And what was that?" she went after him, unrelentingly. "To deny everything? To act like you weren't..."

"For the millionth time, there is no such place as Narnia!" he made a dash for the stairs.

"How old was Lucy?" Aquamarine's trick question shot out quick as a whip as she stood at the top of the staircase, her fingers wrapped around the side of the upper banister.

"Twenty-three, why?" Peter's forehead crinkled, not realizing that he had unwittingly told the truth.

"The girl I met on the train was only seventeen, Peter." her eyes felt moist with tears; she knew he was in pain and she was in no way trying to add to it. All Aquamarine wanted was to help but-not unlike his siblings-she didn't know where to begin.

"I meant seventeen." Peter lied. "I don't know why I said twenty-three."

"I do." the mermaid replied sort of quietly. "That was the age she must have been when you came back from that other place, where ever Narnia is."

"Nonsense." he clenched his teeth together so tightly that his head started to hurt.

"No, it's not nonsense, you're-"

"Stop!" Peter demanded in a voice that sounded far more like a frightened child than a high king. "I don't want to hear another word. You, my dead siblings, these voices, whomever keeps roaring in my ears at night...you are..." his lower lip quivered and his voice shook, vibrating against the empty parts of the house. Aquamarine's eyes widened and her lips parted as if uncertain whether or not they were supposed to be moving, but she didn't say anything. "...you're all insane!" with that, he ran out of the front door and left without even grabbing his coat.

Azure, who had not heard any of the argument, but had noticed the door slamming shrugged his shoulders and muttered something about young couples being so 'difficult'.

As for Warren, he had managed to hear a little more of it than the merman had, and was a bit confused. What was this word, 'Narnia' that was mentioned? Why did it have that strange frightening effect on his roommate? What was it that angered him so? And what was that about 'voices'? Was the poor man starting to hallucinate now, too?

"Aqua," he turned to her for an explanation.

She shook her head as she walked down the stairs. "I think if he wants you to know, he'll tell you. If he ever gets over himself, that is!" Peter hadn't told anyone _her_ secret, so she figured she didn't have a right to tell his even if they had been shouting about it in a fairly-open stairwell.

"But I don't understand..." Warren said as he reached for the car keys left by the door, knowing Azure and Aquamarine would still need a ride back-he would have to go looking for Peter later.

"You know what?" Aquamarine decided, sighing deeply to herself. "Neither do I."

No one said a word the entire ride back to the apartment. Azure would have been oblivious to any reason for keeping his mouth shut and his idiotic prattle to himself-as he always was-but being a chaperon had apparently 'tired him out' so that he spend the whole time with his head back on the cushion, mouth half open, snoring heavily in a surprisingly deep slumber.

Aquamarine looked out the window. The sun had vanished again behind much darker clouds than those that had surrounded it earlier. Leaning her head on the window, feeling its coolness press up against the side of her forehead, she watched, blinking twice at the raindrops as they started to fall down and hit the side of the car. Where had Peter run off to when he'd pretty much flown out of the house earlier? Was there any place worth his hiding in here in this world?

Warren kept his eyes on the road and his thoughts on driving but it would not be true to say that he didn't worry about Peter, too. He watched carefully just in case he might see him standing there outside on any sidewalk, worn from his outburst and from running, ready to come home.

The car came to a stop; Azure was jolted forward, woke up, and instantly started going on and on about something utterly stupid. Aquamarine didn't hear what he was saying, though, because she thought for a split second she saw something quite strange-a blur of soft golden-orange and the flicker of a yellow tail disappearing into an alleyway. Her eyes widened as the last bit of the thing-or beast, rather-disappeared into the darkness. A large velveted cat's paw.

The rain over head seemed to let up which meant the mermaid wouldn't have to worry about getting wet and her tail appearing, but oddly enough, the thought never crossed her mind. She was much more concerned with tapping Warren on the shoulder and whispering. "What was that? Did you see it?"

"See what?" he asked.

"The large tawny animal!" Aquamarine whispered in a breathy voice as if she was afraid to speak of him too loudly. "he was stalking over to the alleyway!"

"I didn't see anything, Aqua." Warren said, his voice was absent but not at all unkind. "Perhaps it was just a large dog...quite a few strays this year."

"It wasn't a dog." the mermaid knew, getting up out of the car and racing over to the front of the alleyway in the hopes of catching another glimpse of it and pointing it out, at least to Warren. She didn't care if Azure saw the creature or not.

At first, she couldn't see anything except for a rather sullen-faced tom cat that wasn't the right colour to be the great shaggy animal she was looking for, but then, there he was, peering out from behind a large dustbin just barely big enough to hide him.

He had the most striking eyes Aquamarine could have ever imagined and when his candle-like golden spheres meet with her own sea-blue ones, she knew at once what it was he wanted from her.

"He wants me to follow him." Aquamarine breathed, feeling very important all of a sudden as if she knew she was being picked for a very formal, even regal, mission. Even if she didn't know what it was or what she might have to do, she was willing to try.

"I don't see anything." said Warren, squinting very hard. "Are you sure you can see your animal, Aquamarine?"

She very nearly stomped her foot with annoyance. "Of course! He's right there!"

Azure frowned. "I don't see any animals."

Although she had not had very much strength in her legs since the crash, Aquamarine suddenly felt very strong indeed. Strong enough, in fact, to take off running after the animal who stopped for a split second and nodded at her as if pleased with her choice, before continuing on his way.

It had all happened so quickly and the alleyway was so dark that both Azure and Warren soon lost sight of her and had to resort to aimlessly shouting her name as loudly as possible in hopes she would come to her senses and answer them.

Their hopes were quite in vain, the mermaid and the Lion (for of course, that was what she now realized the animal was) were already long gone from the rows of garbage and were out in the open air, cutting through a park of some kind.

They passed a few people here and there, but no one seemed to see the Lion, only the pale-haired girl with her cheeks flushed a strangely turquoise colour racing by them as if she was trying to keep up with something invisible.

After a while the Lion came to a stop and lowered himself, waiting for Aquamarine to climb onto his back. At first she was hesitant; she felt it to be a very different thing to ride a creature as opposed to merely following it around. In truth, she was afraid. Not of being eaten-somehow she knew he wouldn't do such a thing, not _this_ Lion-but she was afraid all the same. A low half-growl was suggested from the back of his throat. Realizing it was silly to hang back and be defiant now when she knew in her heart she would have done something far more perilous than this at the creature's bidding, she gripped the beautiful flowing mane of gold and pulled herself onto his back.

The Lion carried her for a while until they came to a bay with a bitter-green colouring about its grass and trees. The greenish-cobalt water lapping on the lowest parts of the sand was pretty but in an unnerving way. However sure the mermaid was that the Lion meant her no harm, she was not so certain about the water-a very awkward, even embarrassing, feeling for any sea-being to have to suffer with.

But the Lion's face did not turn to the water; he looked up at the top of a relatively small-but large enough to unease a person-cliff.

He didn't need to speak for Aquamarine to know what he was telling her to do. "What? Go up there? Climb it? On my own? I can't do that! I wont do it, sir!" Something about the Lion made her call him sir in spite of her stubbornness.

The beautiful creature did not reach up a paw threateningly or even try to give her a gentle nudge forward with his muffle, he merely fixed his gaze very hard on her until she could take it no longer.

"Stop staring at me like that!" exclaimed Aquamarine, not at all fond of the Lion at the moment. "What under Neptune's great blue sea is worth going up those jagged rocks for?"

His gaze still fixed, unmoved and unwavering, the Lion blinked once and his bright eyes glowed like a mirror illumined by a background fire's light. In them, the mermaid saw the very last thing she expected to see. A castle and a handsome golden-bearded man sitting on a throne. There were three other thrones near by but the images of them were rather blurry so Aquamarine could not recognize their faces. The man, though, whom she now realized was wearing a perfectly splendid crown on his head was not unfamiliar. She knew him; those eyes, though they danced far more than her mind seemed to think they would in real life, she had definitely seen before.

It finally clicked. "High King Peter!"

The Lion nodded, the corners of his lips curling upwards slightly in the faintest suggestion of a smile though he seemed too sad to smile for real.

"You're the Aslan in the letter, then!" Aquamarine gasped, feeling a bit quaky in the knees now. "Oh, I didn't think you'd be a real lion! I...I thought...I thought you were only an expression!"

Aslan shook his head and moved his eyes away from her to the cliff for a brief moment.

"You don't think he would do something..." Aquamarine's voice trailed off as she fumbled to find the right words. "...something...something _stupid_?"

Aslan did not answer and she did not get any inclination of what he meant to say this time; only that he still wanted her to climb the cliff.

She wasn't much good on legs even when they hadn't just suffered a recent injury, so she was rather worried of causing more damage to herself but she sucked it up, made a polite little curtsey-a squirmy sort done only by merfolk ladies, rarely if ever seen on land-and reached for the first rock to pull herself up.

Grunting, she felt a gentle boost up from the Lion and suddenly felt so much safer even though nothing had changed and she knew he was not going to come with her all the way. Something about just knowing he was there below, watching her ascent upwards gave her a funny sort of comfort. How she wished after only two clumpy kicks up the unexpected path she found from the direction Aslan had nudged her in that the great Lion had chosen to go up to Peter himself and talk some sense into him! What could she, Aquamarine, do? Peter didn't even like her! And of course, in spite of the fact that she could almost tolerate his presence and even almost enjoy it sometimes, she also did not like _him_.

What if he _did_ do something foolish? Aquamarine wondered as she found herself getting closer and closer to the top. What if he had done something to...to...end it all? Sure, maybe it didn't sound like him-he wasn't a coward, whatever else he was. Supposing though he'd had enough? Supposing he...no, he hadn't.

The sky looked dark and the mermaid prayed it wouldn't start raining again. Imagine being stranded on a cliff with a tail! Daring to inhale deeply and look down, Aquamarine realized that perhaps that wouldn't be the worst predicament on _this_ cliff. There was water enough below, even if it did not look completely appealing. One deep breath later, she was on the move again.

There, once at the top, she finally reached him. Peter was sitting with his back to her, against the side of a shrub-like tree. He leaned listlessly-almost lifelessly, she realized not without a faint prick of horror as she approached-not making the littlest sound or acting as if he noticed her arrival at all.


	12. A rather nasty chill

_England (a cliff at the edge of a bay): September 16th, 1949_

_4:04 PM_

Alone in the breezy air coming off of the shimmering, almost-winery body of water below the cliff where he sat-quite close to the edge but not at all close enough to actually fall and cause himself any real damage-Peter shivered. He was completely soaked from the past rain and little splutters of ocean spray from the bay when he'd been closer to the ground before climbing up here, utterly chilled to the bone, and yet he did nothing about it. It was a foolish, foolish thing, he knew, to allow clothing that was even a little damp to dry on a body-never mind clothes so wet they clung to him as tightly as his own skin, but he didn't let knowing that change his actions. A cough racked him; his own personal earth quake, still he didn't move.

The man who had once been the high king of Narnia and was now a disbelieving medical student who's whole life was in shambles was exhausted. The climb had spent him and he wasn't even sure why he had forced himself into this absurd exertion in the first place. Actually, he wasn't sure why he had forced himself into a lot of things as of late. Yet, Peter had too much pride to change anything. Too much pride to believe, too much pride to look like an idiot for not believing, too much pride to live, and, at the same time, too much pride to die. If the real truth was to be told, Peter would have to admit that he had stood, not too long ago, much closer to the edge than he was now and he had thought...if only for a fleeting second...about...but he couldn't do it.

It's just proof that I am no high king, no king at all, thought Peter to himself, that's what it is. Proof. Solid, good, pure, proof! No decent king should fear death! No king should feel his heart beating and his blood running through his veins like ice just because he was faced with an end to something.

That might have been fairly good reasoning on his part if only the statement about why he couldn't do it, why he couldn't let himself jump, had even a grain of truth to it. Really, it was a rather stupid lie. For he hadn't been afraid as he stood there-not of death, anyway-it was something greater than that that stopped him.

Leaning back against a little tree, a pathetic shrub-like weakling of a thing, he closed his eyes and rested, still as a dead man-though he lived and breathed. It was a sort of rest stop on the road to sleep where he let himself stay. Too deeply gone for thoughts and to feel the cold around him at its most intense, but too close to being awake for any dreams or subconscious memories. Yes, it was the perfect place; here, even the voices maintained their distance. His own conscience shut up in this blackness and the numbness was heavenly. Aching body members only stung a little and a roaring heart-still longing for another world in spite of itself-was quieted to little more than a whispering wind.

That was when he heard an unexpected voice; it was surprisingly near-by considering that there had seemed to be no sounds of anyone approaching. A hand rested on his shoulder; the hand was not warm, rather, it was very cool, but his own clothing and self were so cold that the touch felt full of heat.

"Peter!" he heard a familiar girl's voice cry out as she threw her arms around him. His mind, irrational from the climb and chill, made him think for a second that it was Susan-never minding that she was supposed to be dead, that he'd seen her body in the casket only a few days ago-until he opened his eyes all the way and saw the mermaid, Aquamarine.

In her joy at finding him alive-or as close to it as someone in his situation could be-the mermaid had very nearly entirely forgotten how much she actually disliked him; clinging to him as though he was one of her oldest and dearest friends in the whole of the world.

"Aqua..." Peter mumbled, squinting and quivering, just barely returning to his right mind and sanity. "...I'm wet."

It took a minute for what he meant to sink in and when it finally did, Aquamarine gasped, pulling away quickly. He was _wet_. Wet meant _water_ ; water meant...tail...oh crud.

Aquamarine's eyes widened as she pulled away from him. Looking down at her legs, Peter could see that there were already little bluish-silver scales forming on them. "Sorry," he murmured.

The mermaid shuddered, but not as a reaction to his apology; she just didn't much like the idea of jumping off of the cliff and into the water below-though she knew it wasn't going to hurt her, not a mer-being like herself, and she dreaded the idea that she mightn't have any other choice. After all, she couldn't stay like this, her tail formed only about a quarter's worth now, partly human in appearance still. How uncomfortable it made her feel! The partly formed scales itched and some of them, much to her horror, broke off painfully turning into little piles of fine, green-coloured dust. She had to get herself to the edge and jump and she had to do so at once.

Feeling very much as if he was in a dream he was just about to wake up from, Peter pushed himself back up to his feet, surprised at how weak-and feverish-he felt, and offered his hand to Aquamarine so as to help her somehow.

The mermaid started to lift up her arm but it felt a little heavy. Glancing down at it, both Peter and Aquamarine realized that there was a heavy wool coat thrown over the side of it.

Funny, thought Aquamarine to herself, I suppose I must have picked up Peter's coat on the way out of the Pevensies' old house, I must have-because it's here with me-but I don't remember doing it.

And she certainly didn't remember taking it out of the car with her or carrying it along as she'd chased after Aslan or else when she had been climbing up here in the first place, but there it was.

An unexpected flash lit up the darkening sky above them and Aquamarine realized that even if she couldn't reach the water in time, the sun would set soon enough and her tail would appear in its full form anyway so she stopped worrying. Besides, it looked like it was about to rain again. Rain meant water, too.

A clap of thunder echoed and it started pour down relentlessly. Aquamarine handed Peter his coat and told him to make a run for whichever tree looked least likely to fall down in a storm, waiting there until it was all over. He turned and located a reasonably suitable tree but he didn't want to leave Aquamarine alone in the middle of the storm. After all, she had just climbed a whole darn cliff for him-goodness knows why!-and he felt horrible just leaving her there.

"It's just a bit of water, Peter." Aquamarine said, a ring of her watery-laughter straining through whatever tension remained in her tone. "I'm a mermaid, it wont hurt me."

"What if you get struck by lightning?" Peter pointed out, holding the coat over their heads as the rainwater hit what was left of the mermaid's legs, turning them into a full tail. "Or blown over the cliff and hit a rock...or...oh, bother, by the Lion's Mane, Aquamarine! You know it isn't safe."

"As if you cared!" she replied rather hotly, feeling a bit of her temper being quickly lost. "You...you...you're a no...well, like I said before, I can't insult you because I know what you are now."

He laughed in spite of himself. "So you don't think I'm a half-wit anymore, then?"

"No, I still think it, I just can't _say_ it."

"I know you think I'm a king," he scooted a little closer to her. "but I'm not, you have to believe me."

"I don't." she insisted stubbornly. "I know what you are and I know what you are not. It's no use hiding yourself, Peter, eventually it's all going to catch up with you all it will only hurt all the worse because of denying it."

Lightning struck a little bush-like plant a half-foot or so away from where they were arguing, a few teeny gold sparks that if it were less damp out, could have started a fire, lit up the leaves on the plant's left side. Startled, Aquamarine let out a yelp and Peter, seeing no other option, lifted her up part way and dragged her over to the tree he had picked out. It wasn't very good shelter but somehow or other they just knew it wouldn't be struck, not like that unfortunate bush-thing.

Even with his coat wrapped around his shoulders now, Peter's body shook and his nasty cough returned.

"Your lips are blue." Aquamarine noticed for the first time. "What's wrong?" she had never seen a human turn that colour before, only other merfolk like herself and of course she hadn't the faintest notion that it meant they were too cold or ill. Mermaids didn't need icy water for their bodies to flush blue, it happened often enough without it.

He was back to murmuring now, his voice a mite too weak for proper shouting, even over the noise of the thunderstorm. "I'm just a little cold." he tried in vain to keep his teeth from chattering.

* * *

_England (Peter and Warren's apartment): September 17th, 1949_

_10:55 AM_

When Peter awoke late the next morning, putting his hand to his aching forehead, he found himself in his own bed and for a minute or so wondered if it had all been a dream. If perhaps he had not really flipped out after Aquamarine discovered the truth about his past and climbed that cliff. But of course, he soon realized that it had all happened after all. All the signs remained, his own worn body, too feverish and stiff to move quickly, his soiled clothing from yesterday draped over a chair by the window, and his little sister's wooden box placed right below it-mostly undamaged though a little weather beaten.

"But how did I get back here, then?" Peter thought aloud, rubbing his throbbing temples and coughing so hard that he thought his lungs would fly out of his mouth presently.

There was a knock at his bedroom door and then whomever was behind it, swung it open without waiting for an answer. Aquamarine stood there-being a creature of the sea a little cold water did her no harm what so ever. It had been fairly easy for her to wait until the first rays of the sun rose up into the sky again and the earth became mostly dry, her tail vanishing, and then to help a weak, rambling Peter down the cliff. When they reached the apartment, Warren at once saw that his friend was unwell so he helped him into his bed clothes while Aquamarine saw to fetching extra blankets from the hall closet. The entire time, without realizing it, Peter had still had Lucy's box under his arm until Warren gently nudged it away and put it aside for a little while.

This all took a little while to explain to Peter who-having been frozen and a bit delirious at the time-remembered none of the events of the early morning, but when it had all been sorted out and he finally understood that, basically, it had been Aquamarine who'd rescued him, he thanked her.

"You're welcome, your majesty." the mermaid said because Warren was not in ear-shot of the room.

Peter winced. "I told you-"

"What you want to believe is your problem," said Aquamarine. "but what I will believe is mine, and I do believe it was all true. Anyway, I saw Aslan-he was the one who led me to you."

"Rubbish." coughed Peter, blinking back, not tears, but just water that filled up his eyes from the chill he'd caught.

Much to his surprise, Aquamarine didn't stay and argue any longer; rather, she simply patted the side of his hand gently and somewhat awkwardly, telling him to try and get some rest. He wasn't sure if he was happy with her new disposition towards him or not, but he didn't give the matter much more thought before climbing out of bed and making his way over to Lucy's wooden box.

Sitting back on the edge of the bed with the box in his lap, he fought back another coughing fit and opened it to see its contents. It wasn't packed with things; only filled up about half-way but he knew instinctively that each item had meant something to Lucy. The first thing was the buddle of old black-and-white photographs held together by a piece of slightly-frayed purple ribbon that barely looked like it was up to the task anymore.

As he pulled the ribbon off, half of it fell to pieces under the weight of his thumb, and he brushed the damaged threads aside, focusing sorely on the pictures. The one on top was of himself as a little boy holding Lucy when she was barely two weeks old.

Real tears nearly pricked Peter's eyes but he blinked them back and placed the photographs back in the box; he wouldn't help himself fall apart anymore than he already had. It would be best not to look at things that he knew would only bring pain.

The next thing in the box was a book Lucy had been fond of; 'The Little White Horse'. Holding the book stiffly, he noticed a slip of paper sticking out from the middle-pages. It was an old bookmark he and Edmund had made for their little sister; decorated with messy scribbles of crayon. Peter hadn't known she still _had_ that bookmark, never mind still used it.

Should he press on and keep looking? There were still a few more things in there. No, he couldn't keep going. Managing to sigh and sneeze at the same time, he slammed the box shut and slid it under the bed.


	13. The reasons why

_England (Peter and Warren's apartment): September 24th, 1949_

_8:30 AM_

Slowly but surely, Peter had recovered from his chill. At least he hadn't had to wait out his time alone; there always seemed to be someone near-by so that he was never completely by himself. Surprisingly, his most frequent bed-side companion wasn't Warren after all, but Aquamarine. He wasn't sure _why_ she stayed to the point of nearly being under-foot if he had been feeling at his best, and yet, he never bothered to directly ask. Somehow or other, he had gotten used to her presence. Even her occasional stormy expressions didn't seem as irksome or alarming as they'd used to be. And even if their intensity hadn't lessened they had become rather infrequent anyway.

It could have been to avoid Azure, he had tried to guess once; but, no, it couldn't be that-sticking by the side of the man their 'chaperon' believed her to be engaged to only made him hover around all the more so.

Now that he was well enough to get up and function without falling over or coughing, and there wasn't constant snot dripping out of at least one nostril for any extended amounts of time, Peter decided he ought to get back to his classes at the university.

Of course, if he didn't show up again for a while, his professors-even the crankier ones-would have surely heard the news about his dead family and have been pretty lenient about attendance, but he liked the idea of having something to thrust himself into again. He didn't like being alone in the apartment and company was almost just as unpleasant; nor did was he any longer the sort of person who could find joy in the small, simple things of life. If he had to go on and keep living without his family, Peter decided that he would not just sit around trying not to think about the box under his bed or else of the look on Susan's face the last time they had spoken, it was time to get back to a true reality. Lessons and learning were just as important as they had always been, though Peter no longer really remembered why. If asked why he still-or even why he had ever-wanted to be a doctor, he wouldn't have been able to come up with even the most trivial of answers.

It did actually cross his mind once or twice that he mightn't like being a doctor even after all this effort to make it through medical school with flying colours. That he might, perhaps, at some point in time, have to help a person who had been in a railway accident. To see them bruised and ash-stained...to remember the pain he tried so hard not to focus on...no, he pushed those thoughts out of his head, completely unwilling to connect his current actions and attitudes to that future scenario.

Straightening out his collar, Peter blinked rather anticlimactically into the mirror in his bedroom and headed for the kitchen where he found a very guilty-faced Azure pursing his lips in a bad parody of innocent whistling, Warren standing open-mouthed like a cod fish, and Aquamarine sprawled out on the cold floor with her tail fully formed. The remains of a broken water-pitcher were only a couple of inches away.

Peter cracked a faint smile in spite of himself, mostly as a reaction to Warren's surprise at discovering what Aquamarine and Azure-for he had to have put two and two together by now-really were.

Annoyed, Aquamarine scowled up at him furiously, snapping at Azure to for the love of Neptune to hand her a towel so she could dry off and get her legs back.

"Oh, good idea." Azure said very dim-wittedly as his ex-betrothed ripped the dish towel he was waving a few inches away from the tips of her finger-scales out of his hands.

"Warren, stop looking at me like that!" snapped Aquamarine, drying herself off and standing up once her tail was gone.

Stammering and turning very red in the face, Warren faltered, "Oh, terribly sorry...it's just I didn't know...I ought to have...oh, bother!"

Peter thought that if Warren was a female his crimson face would have presently gone quite white and he would have fainted. As it was, he came close enough to that, trying to steady his swaying self by clinging to the counter's side for dear life.

Once his senses returned to him, Warren realized that Peter's facial expression contained only minimum amusement and no signs of shock or surprise at the discovery that there was a mermaid living in their apartment. "How long have you known?"

"Since the first day." Peter admitted, bending down to clean up the broken glass before Warren (who was slightly more prone to accidents) attempted it and ended up cutting himself and bleeding to death on top of everything else.

Warren's eyes widened and he took a step back. "Since the first day!" he echoed, unable to take the full impact of those words in.

"I'm sorry about the pitcher." said Azure, not looking very much as if he really were sorry at all.

"What happened anyway?" Peter wanted to know.

"What happened is, Azure thought it would be fun to fix his own breakfast the human way and when the food turned out horrible, he thought he would at least pour himself a glass of water-and I told him he would drop the pitcher-and...ugh!" Aquamarine ranted angrily, being fond of nobody, not even the poor, goggle-eyed Warren (who was playing anxiously with the frames of his glasses) at the moment.

Looking over towards the stove and suddenly smelling something strong and burnt, Peter noticed the black pan (which he could have sworn had been _silver_ -coloured the night before) plastered with what might have once been eggs and some other unidentifiable breakfast product.

"I think he was trying to make eggs, toast, and orange juice." Warren shrugged his shoulders.

Peter could see what might have once been toast floating around in the center there. "I don't see any orange juice."

"You just got better, I don't think we should tell you where it is or you'll get sick again." Aquamarine told him, only half-joking.

"I thought that was egg yolk!" Peter exclaimed, feeling very disgusted.

"Nope." the mermaid told him.

"All right, ew." muttered Peter, grabbing his satchel. The feeling of it hanging off of his shoulder seemed sort of out of place, like something from another life or a dream long forgotten.

"Where are you going?" Aquamarine asked, forgetting that she was upset, now genuinely interested.

"The university." said Peter as he walked towards the door.

"Already?" Warren crinkled his forehead. "A little soon, don't you think, Peter?"

"No." he said, taking a few more steps away from them.

"I mean, are you sure you're...ready...to go back?"

Oh by the mane, Warren, you're not my mother! Peter thought, almost voicing his annoyance but biting it back at the last minute, realizing it might be a little more hurtful to his roommate than he was bargaining for. "I have classes."

Knowing he was not going to change his friend's mind, Warren sighed and asked what time he planned to come back.

"Don't know." Peter shrugged his shoulders.

"Well...it's just with Aquamarine here and Azure...I-"

"They're grown-ups, they can take care of themselves." Peter said, though in Azure's case the latter part probably wasn't true.

"See you later, then." said Warren.

"Yes, of course." Peter nodded and reached for the doorknob.

Aquamarine looked at him quizzingly. "Peter, why do you want to go to class?"

"Because I have to, Aqua." Peter nearly laughed in disbelief. "I'm a medical student, this is what medical students do."

"That isn't what I meant." she said in a very different tone, one that made him feel like little fish were swimming up and down his back. "And that is not what you are."

"Goodbye, Aquamarine." Peter's lips pouted and his brows came close together in a deep frown for the moment he stood there before leaving, being the only one in the room who knew what she meant and knew, deep down, that she was right.

* * *

_England (the subway station): September 24th, 1949_

_9:10 AM_

As Wilma boarded the subway, she noticed a familiar face, Peter Pevensie. He had been cold towards her when they'd last spoken at his brother and sister's funeral, but of course, that was only to be expected and she felt it would be rather rude of her if she didn't at least say hello.

"Hi," his tone was forcibly polite but she could tell he wasn't glad that she had noticed him there.

"Are you going to classes again so soon after..." Wilma's voice trailed off and, feeling awkward, she played with the ends of the long braid down the middle of her back, tugging it over her left shoulder.

A distant grunt of acknowagement was all she got in return. That was alright, she figured she didn't deserve much else, considering the way she had treated his brother.

"I-I-I called the railway station officials...about..." Wilma's voice was shaky now as if she was afraid she was saying or doing something inappropriate. "about if...if they might have found your younger sister."

This surprised him and he actually turned and looked at her ( _at_ her not _through_ her for the first time in a long while). "You did?"

"Well, I did like Lucy, she was always such a sweet girl."

The picture he had seen in the wooden box of himself holding little baby Lucy popped into Peter's mind and, in an attempt to fight back the tears that he still refused to shed, shuddered.

"They didn't find her...still..." said Wilma, probably thinking that he was shuddering out of fear of the image of a mangled Lucy found under the wreckage of a train. It probably was better if he just remembered her as he had last seen her than to have that horrid sight, or even the _thought_ of that sight, in his mind for the rest of his life.

Somewhat unwittingly, Peter's left eyebrow arched slightly and Wilma winced, adding, "Oh, but you probably knew that already."

"I wanted to say I'm sorry, Peter." Wilma gathered up her courage and spoke the words that were truly on her mind.

Confused, Peter reminded her that accidents happen and that there was nothing she could have done to stop it; rather thrown-off by the almost warm tone he found himself speaking to her in.

"I didn't mean the train crash." she whispered, her voice lowering so much it was a wonder that Peter actually heard and understood her.

Peter's eyes widened; of course she didn't mean the train crash-but part of him didn't want to believe that it went beyond the normal, run-of-the-mill condolences anyone might breathe out sadly in his direction before going off and quickly forgetting about it.

"I meant about how I treated your brother." Wilma found herself forgetting even that they were in public-on a subway, no less-knowing that this might be the only time she might ever get a chance to apologize. Of course she would have rather made her plea for forgiveness to Edmund, but since he was gone, his brother was the closest thing she would ever be able to reach. They were of the same blood; Peter was the only Pevensie left after the crash of September 11th. It was with him that she had to try to make amends.

I treated him worse than you did, Peter thought-wondering for a moment how she might respond if he said that out loud.

"He trusted me...with everything..." Wilma was careful not to actually say the word 'Narnia' remembering how odd it made him act last time she said it-at the funeral-but he still knew what she really meant. "He even told me about a time he..." her voice wavered and she forced back a sniffle, worried that it would have sounded pathetic and forced even though it wasn't. "...betrayed everyone...and I just...left..."

With a squeaky screech, the subway came to a stop. Tightening his grip on his satchel as if trying to make sure it was still there, containing all the things he would need to thrust himself back into his classes, Peter half-turned and whispered, "You weren't the only one who did."

"What do you mean?" her pretty, dark brow crinkled and her expression grew cloudy.

He didn't' answer her question, he just nodded at her and said, "See you around, Wilma."

In the end, however, that proved to be enough. In a strange way, Wilma felt she really had patched things up, that she had really done the right thing, though it felt so different from what she expected it to feel like. She wasn't sure what effect whatever words she had managed to stammer out during that ever-so-short conversation would have on the former high king of Narnia (if the stories really were true after all, as she strongly suspected they might be). But that was okay because the world felt quieter now as if everything had already happened before in another tale she couldn't quite remember, in a book she was only re-reading. One she knew-even if she couldn't recall it exactly-had to have a happy ending when all was said and done.

* * *

_England: September 24th, 1949_

_10:01 AM_

In spite of the fact that Peter was sitting in class, taking his notes, looking rather like any other young medical student in the room, there was something off about him. It wasn't that he let his mind wander-though that seemed to be the case as well-seeing as no matter where it went, his pen still moved at the right rate and the over-all quality of his work didn't change. Yet, something about him had vanished. The intensity was still there in all its vigor but there seemed to be less heart in it.

The professor of that particular class on this day was a kindly, almost extraordinary sort of man who, while never having set foot in another world besides his own, was the very sort of person one felt really ought to have the opportunity to do so. He reminded Peter just a little bit of Professor Kirke the way his thoughtful, concerned but never overly-sympathetic glances fell on which ever student he happened to sense something amiss with.

Peter felt a tap on his right shoulder and heard a slightly wheezy voice (but with an undertone of smoothness riding under the raspy brunt of it) whisper, "Mr. Pevensie, a word in the hallway if you please?"

"Yes, Professor." said Peter, putting down his pen and following his teacher out of the classroom into the deserted hallway.

"Mr. Pevensie," the professor started, shaking his head as if he did not know where to begin.

"Is this about the fact that I'm back so soon after..." his voice trailed off when he caught side of the almost-bemused look on his professor's face which showed that they were clearly not on the same train of thought.

"No, Mr. Pevensie, I simply have a question to ask you." The professor put his hand close to one of Peter's shoulders as if he was contemplating touching his student in a comforting gesture and then decided against it, allowing his hand to fall gracelessly back down to its regular level.

"What is it, sir?"

"Why are you here, Mr. Pevensie?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean what I said," he sucked in his cheeks though Peter was never sure if it was out of pity, or else frustration. "Why are you here?"

"I'm taking the class..."

"Why?"

"Why am I taking the class?" Peter blinked and took a step back.

"Yes."

"Because it's required to get through medical school."

"And why are you so keen on getting through it?" a gray eyebrow raised itself up at him in a challenging sort of way.

His tongue felt like it was glued to the bottom of his mouth all of a sudden; he didn't know how to answer that.

"What are you going to do once you're finished? Become a doctor? A medical assistant? Why?"

"I want to help people." Peter murmured, knowing at least that much was true.

"Yes, that's good," the professor had to agree. "but that cannot be the only thing pushing you through my course, Mr. Pevensie, it's just not enough."

"How is it not enough?" Peter burst out, getting a little angry now. "I take notes on every lesson, I study all night sometimes, I have high marks, I struggled to pass every exam."

The professor's face softened. "I know you do, I know you're a bright young man, don't you think I know that?"

"Then what is the problem?" he had to know.

"The problem is, Peter," he didn't bother with the full formality for the moment. "I believe in training pupils who are running towards something, not running _away_ from something."

"What am I running away from?" asked Peter.

The professor shook his head, sighed deeply, and shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, but I don't think I want to see you in my class again until you figure it out."

"What?" Peter took another step back, completely stunned.

"I'm sorry." the professor started to walk, by himself, back towards the classroom door. He made no motions to suggest he would allow Peter to follow him. "I'll only let you back in if you can tell me why you're really here."

Peter clenched his jaw.

"Tell me, why _are_ you here?"

"I don't even know anymore." Peter said, not to the professor, but to himself.

And with that, he turned on his heels and walked away. Down the hallway passed all the doors he thought he knew, thought he cared about, and thought he had reasons for entering. When he came to the doors leading outside, he paused for a moment, wondering if he ought to turn around and demand to be let back in class. Should he alert the administration to his professor's unfairness? Was it even worth it? Not right now it wasn't. With a heavy sigh, Peter flung the glass double-doors open and walked right passed the university lawn.

As his pace picked up, turning from a fast walk, to a jog, to out-right running, he thought maybe, just maybe, for the first time in a long while, he was really running towards something without trying to hide from something else.


	14. Dreams and Memories

_England: September 24th, 1949_

_11:27 AM_

Running towards something, as opposed to _away_ from something, is all very well and good. It is, in fact, a very exhilarating feeling; but when all is said and done, the thrill of it wears off, leaving a person breathless. This is especially true if, like Peter, the person running doesn't know exactly what they're running towards; where their feet mean to take them.

Now, as he felt his pace slowing down to a jog again, his thoughts became clearer and he realized just what had happened. He had been very nearly kicked out of the university; no, it wasn't official, it wasn't like being expelled or anything like that, and, yes, it was only that one class, the other professors probably didn't give a rat's tush as to whether or not his heart was in the class as long as his tuition check cleared. Still, it was a stunning blow. Peter wondered why it didn't bother him as much as it ought to.

Maybe it's just because if I really wanted to fight it, I could, I just don't feel like it right now, Peter thought-his breath felt heavy and he started to slow down from a jog back to a fast walk.

Peter was usually a very fast, and far-reaching, runner, but even he couldn't keep at it for ever though there were times when he almost wished he could. When he ran, he didn't have to think about his siblings, or about Warren, or about Aquamarine, or about lessons, it was just a blank rush of wind roaring in his ears. Roaring, but not like a Lion's roar, nothing quite so unsettling. Perhaps he needed to come up with a better word to describe it; to describe the feeling and the sound, each invoked and enhanced by the other.

At any rate, he was a long way off from the university property now; having rushed by all the familiar places without realizing it. He had even traveled down several streets filled with people, cars, and shops without taking any of it in. If asked a single question about the streets he'd just gone through, Peter would have been at a lost as they had barely even registered as giant blurs in his mind.

The street he found himself on by the time he was going slow enough to take any note of his surroundings was a street he was sure he hadn't been on since he was a child. It wasn't horribly run down, the one or two houses that stood tall at the corners where the sidewalks ended and broke off before extending out onto another road entirely, were well kept-up, but some parts of the pavement looked like they could stand a little repair all the same. Other than those houses, there were only business places: a restaurant, a barber shop, and a funny little building lined with pale yellow stucco which Peter thought looked strangely familiar.

It took a minute for it to come back to him, but then he remembered what sort of place it was. Almost like a little mini-hospital where a bunch of midwives took care of women who had trouble before, during, or after labor. At first, Peter assumed it must have been a place he knew about simply because of his medical studies but then that didn't seem quite right so he stood there a little longer, biting the tip of his tongue in deep concentration.

Of course! He realized-almost laughing from the fact that it hadn't clicked in his mind sooner, mum was here for a few weeks after giving birth to Lucy.

Much to his surprise, he found that although much of his memory of the place was rather hazy (mostly just very dim recollections of playing in the corner with Susan while a bunch of nervous-looking nurses fluttered in and out of the room to check on them every twenty minutes or so-one of them carrying a yowling, barely-more-than-an-infant Edmund because Mr. Pevensie's arms had grown tired and he wanted a little time alone by his wife's bedside) he did remember some of the people there after all. The head lady who ran it-Mrs. Belle, he was pretty sure her name was-her face was one of the ones that stuck in his mind. A kindly-looking woman with a deep, yet not completely unpleasant, frown etched between her two sandy-coloured brows. She had been somewhat over-weight and had a bad habit of rocking back and forth even when she wasn't standing still, making her waddle more than she walked, in general.

I liked her, Peter remembered-feeling a little guilty that not once growing up had it ever occurred to him to try and write to the lady who seemed to have been a far better aunt figure in his early life than his real aunt (Aunt Alberta) ever was, I remember now: she used to slip sweets and goodies and things into my hands when I walked by and then would whistle all innocently, acting like she had no idea where I'd gotten the candy from.

He wondered if she still remembered him (or maybe his mother) and decided to go in and find out-that is, if she was even still working there.

The door knocker, Peter noticed with a light chuckle, was the very same one that had been there when he was little, a weather-beaten, iron-carved image of some large jungle cat's head. When he had last been there, he had been too small to get a good look at knocker unless he bothered to stand on the tips of his toes and stretched, and he couldn't remember if he had ever actually tried it. It was probably a tiger or a panther or something of the like or a...a lion...

A _Lion_! Peter could practically hear a roaring he still refused to admit was unimagined. Squinting at the knocker as if he couldn't remember what to do with it, he thought, just for a split-second, that he saw the gray-black stone grow tawny and the eyes light up a bright golden colour.

Groaning, he shut his own eyes as tightly as they would close and rested in the darkness until he 'regained his senses'. When his eyes opened again, it was just an ordinary door knocker; it needn't have necessarily even been a lion, it could have been any sort of cat. Just a cat, a harmless, unknown, run of the mill cat.

Ignoring the knocker all together (strangely wary of the 'cat' now), his hand reached for the wood of the door to the side of it and rapped twice in a polite, almost apologetic, manner.

The door swung open and a rather pitiful-looking girl of about thirteen wearing a brown dress and a blue smock stood there. She looked terribly flustered and Peter felt as if his very presence qualified as bullying her.

The timid wisp of a thing seemed unable to give him direct eye-contact, but she managed to stammer, "C-c-can I help you?"

"Yes," said Peter, wondering if he should try to meet her eyes or if that would just make the girl more uncomfortable as opposed to simply pretending not to notice her awkwardness. "is Mrs. Belle there?"

She breathed what sounded like a sigh of relief and actually looked up now. "Are you a friend of Mrs. Belle? Here I was thinking you were a lawyer or something...or someone about some official business. "

"Why?" Peter asked in spite of himself.

The girl shrugged her shoulders. "I thought maybe they were going to shut us down because the hospital opened up a new wing last week."

"I see." he tried to sound supportive, but came up a bit short.

The girl didn't mind. "I haven't got anywhere else to go if we close for good...but, Mrs. Belle says we wont and that I'm worrying for nothing..." she explained, holding the door open a little wider to let him in.

As soon as he saw the front antechamber, Peter realized it had hardly changed at all, give or take a little fading of the sunny-coloured walls and a few deeply impressed dings in some parts of the trimmings.

"Wait here." said the girl, giving him a friendly nod. "I'll go see if Mrs. Belle is available."

Peter nodded back and took a seat on the little sofa which he assumed was the same one from all those years ago with new fabric sewn on top to try and hide its actual age. It was a lumpy seat and by the time he was finally able to get comfortable enough so that he wasn't constantly squirming all over it, the girl had returned, bringing a person he could only assume was Mrs. Belle with her.

She didn't look quite how he remembered her, though much of her face appeared to be the same. New wrinkles had formed, not on smooth skin but on other wrinkles and although she'd had a good deal of gray in her hair back when he was a young boy, there was far more of it now.

Still, Peter was fairly certain it was the same person and not someone else with a similar last name. "Hullo."

The woman forced a kind smile and for the first time since she arrived in the room, he realized now tired she looked. "Um, hello there, I was told you wanted to speak to me?"

Peter waited a moment to see if she would recognize him, but when nothing happened, he stood up and said, "I was one of the children you helped take care of in the nursery when my Mum was here a good many years back...um..." he was starting to feel awkward, even a little stupid. "...do you remember me?"

The woman's smiled brightened just a little, but her head still shook no. "I'm sorry, dear, I wish I could...it's just we get so _many_ children-and their parents-in and out of this place...I'm sure you were a lovely child."

Before turning to leave, Peter added, "I'm Peter, Peter Pevensie."

Mrs. Belle's whole face lit up like a candle and she let out what he assumed would have been a squeal of delighted surprise if she was a few years younger. "Peter? Oh, good lord, of course I remember you now!"

A little taken back he said, "Really?"

" _This_ is Peter Pevensie?" laughed the girl who'd opened the door for him. "Oh, gosh, that story the older workers tell about you is the cutest thing I've ever heard!"

Was there some highly embarrassing story going around with a bunch of people he didn't even know? He wondered, waiting and listening to find out more.

"You've gotten so _big_!" gasped Mrs. Belle, pulling him into a tight hug. "All grown up now."

"Why do you remember me?" Peter murmured, unable to comprehend what was happening.

"How could I forget?" laughed Mrs. Belle, patting his shoulder affectionately.

"Forget what?"

"Oh, don't you remember?" the girl blurted out in a rather shocked voice.

"Mary, he was quite young, it's not unlikely he'd forget by now." Mrs. Belle explained understandingly.

"Forget what?" Peter asked with a nervous laugh.

"Oh, can I tell the story this time?" begged Mary.

Mrs. Belle shook her head. "Not this time, dear, you're needed to fold up some towels for the lady who checked in yesterday, two twins premature, fancy that!"

The girl nodded obediently and left Mrs. Belle to tell Peter the story on her own.

"Well," she started. "I'm sure you know that your mother had four babies, you and your three siblings."

Peter wondered if she knew what had happened to them recently and decided that she probably didn't. "Um, yeah..."

"Well, anyhow, when you were born, she had a hard time with you and that was when she first came here."

Peter blinked at her, he hadn't known that, having assumed he was only there after Lucy was born.

"Thankfully she was a very strong woman and got herself together and was soon home with you, who also pulled through nicely." Mrs. Belle went on. "The next two births-the middle children-came along fine, no problems, no need to check her in here."

Peter nodded to assure her he was listening and wanted to hear the rest.

"When your youngest sister was born though, she had her toughest delivery yet..." even though it had been so many years, Mrs. Belle's eyes still grew moist. "...we thought she was going to die, Peter, and she was such a dear, sweet woman...the baby was strong though..."

Thinking back, Peter realized he hadn't known his mother was close to death, no one told him anything about it, not wanting to upset him. Strangely enough, another memory from that time came back, of Aunt Alberta squawking some nonsense that was supposed to comfort him and make him stop asking so many questions about his mum.

Mrs. Belle's lips curled up and her eyes grew less watery as she remembered her favorite part of the story, the main point of it. "We nurses were all talking about what might happen to the baby, Lucy, I think was her name...is that right?"

Thinking about Lucy made his stomach ache so he didn't say anything; rather, he just cleared his throat in a 'go on' sort of way.

"One of us said, 'who's going to take care of the baby now? Surely the father is going to have his hands full with the other three...' and we all shook our heads, probably assuming the poor little thing was going to be up for foster care as likely as not. Thing was, we didn't know you had wandered away from the play area and was standing right behind us sipping a glass of milk one of the staff members had left out on their desk."

"What happened?" Peter asked, curious.

A twinkle came into Mrs. Belle's eyes and she told the final part of the story. "You came up right behind us, all brave and firm and stuff, and said, very loudly, ' _I'll_ take care of her.' and we all stood there just gaping at you because you had the most determined little look on your face."

Peter laughed, "I said that?"

"Yes, you did." she chuckled good-naturedly. "The funny thing was that you had only seen your new little sister one time before that." her eyes flickered playfully. "We'd practically had to pry you away from her crib three hours later."

Suddenly it occurred to him that the picture in the wooden box of him holding Lucy might have actually been taken while they were still here in this mini-hospital, though he didn't know that for sure.

* * *

_England (Peter and Warren's apartment): September 24th, 1949_

_11:30 AM_

Rubbing her temples, Aquamarine yawned heavily. For the first time in a while, she was free of Azure during the daylight hours because Peter wasn't there and he didn't feel the need to chaperon. She wasn't sure what the mentally challenged merman was doing, nor did she care.

More than anything, she realized, she wanted a nap-a nice long one. The thing was though, that she didn't have a bed of her own here, she'd always slept in the bathtub at night because of her tail. It wasn't that she would have necessarily minded sleeping there during the day, she simply didn't feel like resting against a cold marble surface at the moment; her back was aching a little from the tub not being large enough to fit all of her without hunching up.

Because he wasn't there, Aquamarine thought it might be alright to go into Peter's room and sleep in his bed for a few hours, promising herself she would vacate it before he came back from the university-whenever that was.

Crawling under the covers, Aquamarine sighed and fell asleep the moment her head hit the pillows, finding herself plunged into a very peculiar-and surprisingly vivid-dream.

She was swimming during an evening, twilight hour, in the most beautiful sea she'd ever seen or imagined in her whole life and the shore-line sparkled with delightfully golden sand. Not far in, more up than anything else, there was a splendid white-stone castle with little candles lit in the windows twinkling like dozens of cheery, yellow fairies on nearly each sill. Though it was nearly sunset-well passed the time Aquamarine could have had legs in real life-she found herself able to dry off and walk up to the castle.

Inside, there was a feast the likes of which had never been seen before. Rejoicing and happiness abounded and there was a strange goat-legged man playing a funny looking flute, and a tree-maiden playing a harp.

When Aquamarine managed to stop gaping like a stunned cod-fish, she turned to one of the guards and asked him what all the excitement was about.

"Don't you know?" the guard laughed merrily. "The lost high king has returned and he's brought a bride with him! So of course, everyone had to give themselves up for sheer joy and have this marvelous feast."

"I see," said Aquamarine, though she still felt strangely confused.

"Wont you go on in and rejoice with the others?"

"Okay." Aquamarine shrugged her shoulders and walked into the ballroom where everyone was dancing and singing; she could have sworn she saw the same Lucy-girl she'd met on the train the day of the crash dancing amongst the rest of them and even a glimpse of another girl she thought looked rather like Hailey, if that was possible.

There on the dais, was the high king. The mermaid saw at once that it was Peter and that he was far happier than she had ever seen him before. Fairly beaming, she thought to herself as her eyes turned to his bride.

The bride wore a long veil of sea-colours which hid her face at first until she looked over and lifted it up to peer around the room more clearly.

When Aquamarine saw the bride's face she nearly fainted from surprise-it wasn't a stranger's face, it was the very same face she saw every time she looked in a mirror, it was her own face.

"Why, it's _me_!" the mermaid gasped in disbelief, too stunned to feel disgusted.

Then she woke up and found herself back in the apartment again, breathing a sigh that, although could pass for one of relief, sounded almost mournful as well.

Shortly thereafter, she fell back asleep but it was a deep, dreamless one this time.

* * *

_England (Peter and Warren's apartment): September 24h, 1949_

_1:45 PM_

Peter arrived home, feeling lost and confused but also a little better, stronger somehow. He knew it was early and didn't really expect anyone to be home; Warren was probably out running errands and goodness knew where Azure and Aquamarine were.

As he walked into his bedroom, Peter thought he heard deep breathing and noticed Aquamarine asleep in his bed. She looked fairly peaceful except for the fact that she shivered occasionally. Noticing that she had accidentally kicked off some of the covers, he replaced them and put an extra blanket over the top for good measure.

For a fleeting second, he felt the urge to bend down and kiss her forehead or cheek before leaving, but he quickly returned to his senses, shook his head at the mad idea, and left the room.

Lifting up her head, Aquamarine found herself under the warm blankets and saw Peter's retreating back as he vanished into the hallway.


	15. To cry is to remember

_England (Peter and Warren's apartment): September 25th, 1949_

_4:30 PM_

It was funny how just because that one professor had refused to let him back into class, Peter suddenly didn't feel like going back to the university at all. He still didn't know what he wanted-or what he was running away from-or why no matter what, his life always seemed to feel like it was in shambles these days.

Aquamarine, who was sitting a few feet away from him on the other side of the living room, watching Azure as he attempted to get himself untangled from a spool of thread and a ball of yarn (the foolish merman had happened to see a woman knitting while at a bus stop and thought of course that anything a human could do, he could do better. Apparently, that wasn't really the case), glanced over at Peter, noticing the distant expression on his face. She wasn't sure if he was thinking about his siblings, or else about another matter, but somehow it still bothered her that he had yet to weep over them. One day he was just going to break down; and that might be far worse than his little _adventure_ on the cliff for all she knew. Mulling over all of this, the mermaid shuddered.

Warren, reading a book a few feet away from where Peter was sitting, looked up and noticed her slightly violent tremor. "Aqua?" his face twisted into a concerned frown. "Are you alright?"

"Huh?" truth be told, much as she hated to admit it, she had very nearly forgotten Warren was in the room at all; Peter being the object of her current line of thoughts and Azure being the object of her most recent annoyance, poor Warren had somehow gotten lost in the shuffle of the quiet room. "Yeah, I'm okay."

"You sure?" he double checked.

The mermaid nodded deeply. "Yup."

He sighed and turned back to his book. "Very well, then."

Peter knew that something was bothering her, though-her eyes had darkened to a more intense shade of blue and had gotten that stormy look in them again. He stared at her as if silently asking her a question. Her eyes didn't answer, she looked away, disappointed in him; frightened for him as well.

* * *

_England (Peter and Warren's apartment): September 25th, 1949_

_7:45 PM_

As she sat in the water-filled tub, the sun having set by then, Aquamarine leaned back and rested her right cheek against the cool marble. Sliding down, she pulled her head lower and lower until it was under water, being a mermaid she could, of course, breathe just as easily there as she could when her mouth and nose were above the warm bubbles and ripples, in the air. She had often wondered what drowning must feel like, it was something she could not fathom, something that-in spite of Claire and Hailey's attempts to explain-would always be a mystery to her.

There was a knock on the door; she lifted her head up and surfaced to respond. "It's open."

The door cracked open and she caught a glimpse of the side of Peter's nose, turned away from her slightly. "Can I come in?"

"Sure," Aquamarine said hesitantly, feeling a little confused.

He entered the bathroom all the way and crotched down by the side of the tub to talk to her. "What's the matter, Aqua?" Those words felt sort of strange coming out of his mouth. Since when did he care what was wrong with her? He wasn't sure when he had stopped thinking of her as a pest, but in some ways, he simply had.

"Nothing." her tone was curt and dull, completely unconvincing.

"Nothing?" Peter attempted to stare her down, as if he could make her crack and tell him what was amiss just by making direct eye-contact with her for long enough.

Surprisingly, it actually worked to some extent. "I'm worried about you, Peter." she said finally, not quite able to keep looking at him as she spoke.

He blinked, feeling a little stunned. "Me?"

The mermaid looked back at him now. "Why didn't you ever cry for your siblings?"

It was the wrong way to approach the subject, Peter's face hardened and, flinching, he scooted backwards slightly. It didn't take a genius to see she had clearly put him on defense-mode and was unlikely to get anywhere in this conversation.

"I cried for Hailey and Claire," Aquamarine pointed out, not snottily or primly as he might have been expected, but just by way of backing her earlier statement up. "and Raymond."

"Well, maybe I just deal with my emotions differently than you do." said Peter, sucking in his cheeks, holding himself back from snapping out in anger.

"I don't think you do." said the mermaid, unwilling to back down. "You know what I think?"

"I don't care what you think." Peter scowled at her in a very, 'how dare you?' sort of manner, but that was very nearly a lie; to a degree, he did actually care what she thought and was even sort of curious as to what she was going to say. Or he would have been, if his own emotions over the past railway accident didn't bring the subject way too close to home.

Aquamarine went on anyway, perhaps realizing that he didn't mean what he had just said. "I think you deal with your emotions in the same way I do, I don't think it's any different."

Peter didn't understand where she was going with this, but he didn't say anything, he just kept listening for a little while longer.

"The thing is, Peter, you haven't dealt with it, at all." she fought the sudden urge to reach for his hand and comfort him, holding back in as tightly-coiled a manner as possible.

"That's not true, I'm fine, really." Peter felt his cheeks redden, knowing well, that nothing could be farther from the truth. He hadn't dealt with it, because he _couldn't_ deal with it. Telling himself that they were gone and acting like it didn't bother him was all he had left. Trying to figure out what was missing from his now empty life was all he had to live for anymore, it seemed.

"You can't keep this up for ever." Aquamarine told him. "One day-"

"Now look here!" he growled, leaning forward as he interrupted. "You don't know what you're talking about! You think you understand, you act like you're some sort of expert on these things, but guess what, Aquamarine? You're not!"

She blinked back at him coolly, not getting heated up right away, a rather unusual first reaction for someone of her kind.

"You think that just by going around and calling me 'your majesty' when no one's listening, or by telling me I need to get over myself, you're helping, but you're not!" his voice got louder in an attempt to avoid letting it crack, allowing any emotion besides anger to pass through its tone.

The mermaid's pale, fair brows sank down into her now bright-blue-with-rage completion and she sat up straighter to give him a good what-for. "I was only trying to help you!" without thinking she added, "I care about you, okay?"

His face softened slightly when she said the last part, but it didn't stay that way. "Don't you get it? I don't want your help and I don't want you to care about me, either!"

"What do you want, then?" She demanded.

"I want you to leave and take Azure with you, I want everything to go back to the way it was before..." his voice trailed off when he noticed how hurt she looked, thinking he might have gone too far.

"Before what?" Aquamarine asked.

"Nothing."

"No, tell me, before what?"

"Before the crash." Peter looked away from her.

"Oh, I get it." Aquamarine shook her head at him disbelievingly. "I see things perfectly clearly now."

"I-" Peter's voice came out as a sort of squeak, he knew now that he really _had_ gone too far. He hadn't said just about the most stupid thing he could have said, but he certainly had implied it, very strongly at that.

"You think that if I go, disappear from your life for ever, that you can just start pretending none of this ever happened, right? That you're just the same as you've always been, that your siblings are alive somewhere and you're just avoiding them out of your own free will or something." he noticed tears forming in the corners of her eyes and felt like a complete idiot, she did care about him, and he was treating her like...well, like he had treated his poor dead siblings.

"Aqua-"

"Listen, if you want to live in denial, why don't you just use your stupid wish to have amnesia or something?" the mermaid snapped at him.

"I can do that?" Peter blurted out stupidly.

"Ugh." she flicked her tail against the side of the tub heatedly. "You know what? Why waste it? Why bother with wishes and stuff you don't even care about? Why don't I just leave tomorrow?"

"Maybe you should." the words slipped out before he could stop them.

The look on her face was just about the worst thing he could have imagined, it was so like the expression Susan had worn when he'd last seen her. So hopeless, so betrayed, so _hurt_. She turned away from him and pulled her head under water again.

"Wait, I didn't mean that." Peter said, leaning over the edge so as to look down through the clear water at her.

She surfaced again. "Yes you did."

"Aqua-" he tried again.

"Just leave, I'll go away tomorrow, I promise." he could hear the strain in her voice, holding back a sob as she went under again.

* * *

_England (Peter and Warren's apartment): September 26th, 1949_

_6:49 AM_

The sun was up, but Azure wasn't there hovering over them yet, he had probably slept in or something-with the exception of a slight pang of worry that whomever owned the pool he was sleeping in might discover him there, Aquamarine didn't really care. She most certainly did not plan to wait for her stupid ex-betrothed to arrive before leaving, she'd had enough, it was time to go. There was no helping Peter-much as she now realized she wanted to. There was nothing for her on land after all; maybe her family was right, she probably was never meant to leave the ocean. What did she ever find worth holding onto here. Yes, she'd found love in her two friends, Hailey and Claire, and discovered a worthy first crush in Raymond, but she had lost them so tragically. Perhaps she had a friend in Warren, maybe even in Peter in spite of everything, but she couldn't stay with them anymore. Peter didn't even want her around. How perfectly clear he had made his point! Well, it didn't matter, she was as good as gone now that her legs were back.

On her way to the front door, the mermaid suddenly thought she heard weeping. Assuming it was Warren (because Peter never cried), Aquamarine went down the hallway towards his room, cracking the door open slightly. Shockingly, she found Warren fast asleep, and no signs that he'd been crying before getting to that point. The crying continued and the mermaid followed the sound-to Peter's room.

No, he couldn't be! she thought as she gently nudged the door open. "Peter?"

Sitting on his bed, a wooden box open, pictures spread out all over the place, little objects scattered here and there, Peter looked up at her. His eyes were swollen and red, his appearance completely disheveled and broken. "Aren't you going to say 'I told you so'?"

Tears sprang up into her own eyes; she had wanted for him to face up to this, but now that she saw what it did to him, she felt sick to her stomach. "No."

"Thank you." he whispered, wiping his nose with the back of his sleeve.

Aquamarine glided across the room as smoothly as she would have waded to a lost friend in the waves and placed her head on his shoulder.

"I miss them so much." Peter sobbed, looking down at the picture in his hand. "That's why I couldn't cry, Aqua, I remember them when I cry."

"I know, I see that now." was her reassuring whisper.

"I remember everything when I cry." he added, so softly that if she had not been leaning against him, she wouldn't have heard it.

"Even..."

He nodded. "Yes, that too."

"I guess that's it then." The mermaid sighed. "Nothing left to be done."

"I still love them." said Peter.

"You should."

"Aqua?"

"Yeah?"

"One more thing."

She lifted her head up and looked over at him. "I love _you_ , too."


End file.
